


Shake, Rattle and Roll

by Ealasaid



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Cop/Reporter AU, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-05
Updated: 2013-04-15
Packaged: 2017-11-28 07:27:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/671849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ealasaid/pseuds/Ealasaid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Oh come on now,” Dean Winchester said slyly, throwing in a wink. Agent Castiel Novak of the FBI only blinked—not that Dean had expected much else after his year-long professional relationship with the guy, it was still fun to try to ruffle him—and shook his head in irritation. Dean saw him opening his mouth to argue further and beat him to the punch. “I mean, okay. Maybe this actually was a parent being an asshole and drowning their kid in the nearest lake, no kelpies involved. But there is no way that series of fires last month wasn’t an arsonist demon serial murderer.”</p><p>[Cop/Reporter AU where Dean writes for a sketchy conspiracy rag and Castiel is an agent in the supernatural division of the FBI.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dean

**Author's Note:**

  * For [partialdifferential](https://archiveofourown.org/users/partialdifferential/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: I DID NOT AND WILL NOT GIVE PERMISSION FOR THIS TO BE PUBLISHED. Fuck you, Brian Lewis. If anyone notices someone selling this again, please let me know ASAP! (Thanks to xxxkia for the warning!)
> 
> Original notes:  
> For deanlorean/deans1911: AU where Dean is a reporter for a shady conspiracy theory newspaper and Cas is the FBI agent assigned to supernatural cases. Any prompt that has me spit out 4000 words in a couple hours is good enough for me.

 

“Really? Are you  _sure_  there’s nothing remotely off about this drowning?”

A sigh. “Mr. Winchester, there is really nothing more to say.”

“Oh come on now,” Dean Winchester, reporter for supernatural newspaper  _The Night Watch,_  said slyly, throwing in a wink. Agent Castiel Novak of the FBI, ostensibly in the supernatural division (that didn’t _actually_  exist, but Dean had pretty good info on the difference between real divisions and technically real divisions), only blinked—not that Dean had expected much else after his year-long professional relationship with the guy, it was still fun to try to ruffle him—and shook his head in irritation. Dean saw him opening his mouth to argue further and beat him to the punch. “I mean, okay. Maybe this actually was a parent being an asshole and drowning their kid in the nearest lake, no kelpies involved. But there is  _no way_  that series of fires last month wasn’t an arsonist demon serial murderer.”

“Kelpies don’t—goddamnit Winchester, that is an unresolved in-progress investigation.” Novak glowered at him impressively. “I am not at liberty to discuss that with you as you very well know, no matter how  _prestigious_ —” he was adorable when he was sarcastic—“your conspiracy rag is. Now can you please get out of my office?”

Dean whistled cheerfully through his teeth while he pretended to think about that, then kicked his boots off Novak’s desk and leaned forwards. Novak looked vaguely horrified.

“Tell you what,” he said at a slightly lower volume so that Novak’s partner Gabriel Milton became a little more obvious when he continued to try to listen in on their conversation. “How about you and me get dinner tonight, and we share… our extensive knowledge of things that probably don’t exist?”

Novak stared at him.

Dean smiled serenely.

The FBI agent cleared his throat. He still sounded like a broken sanding machine when he said with impressive disbelief, “Are you asking me out to dinner?”

(Gabriel appeared to be smothering giggles.)

“If that’s how you want to take it,” Dean said brightly. “I mean, I was just hoping to get some off-the-record information, but your ass is ridiculously fine and I would be equally happy if you just wanted to get some burgers and go to a drive-in and watch shitty horror movies.”

Novak’s face flatlined from vaguely surprised to unimpressed. “How romantic,” he said dispassionately.

_Whoops_.  _That_  sounded vehement. Dean totally had a thing for the perpetually rumpled agent, but he had definitely not picked up anything the agent might’ve had for him, which, given that the agent currently looked like he was studying a crime scene, was now looking increasingly less likely.

“You’ve wasted enough of my time, Mr. Winchester. Get out.” He dismissively pulled a stack of papers towards him, and that was obviously the end of today.

“Fine,” Dean sighed, and got up. Leaving the room, he paused in the doorway and pointed sternly at Novak. “But first thing tomorrow, you  _will_  tell me about the black dog in downtown.”

Novak ignored him, but Dean thought he’d gotten through to him.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

The truth was that Dean Winchester was actually a good reporter and had all the answers to those questions anyway, because maybe he worked a night job bartending to supplement his income and had a colleague there secretly tracking the FBI database for local cases on the sly. The problem was that he wrote about things most people liked to think didn’t exist for a newspaper with a sketchy reputation, so his excellence in the field was largely overshadowed by the fact that he reported about rampaging unicorns and ritual sacrifice gone wrong.  Dean didn’t mind so much—his philosophy was a sort of “the more people know, the better” variant that determined he should put the truth out there in case people needed it—and  things worked out.

And maybe he had a tragic life story about demons and dead parents, and his brother might have a bit of a vengeance thing going on in between his court dates as a DA hunting down rogue monsters, and Dean might actually be doing some ass-kicking in his spare time  _too_  using the family inheritance of membership into the secret Men of Letters fellowship, but that’s really not that big a deal. Besides, Dean’s well-adjusted enough to pretend it doesn’t affect him a lot when it comes to Agent Novak.

Agent Novak—whom Dean liked to call Cas in the privacy of his own head—was one of life’s curveballs. They’d run into each other at a few too many crime scenes (on his nights off, Dean monitored the police radio), and after Cas had dropped the investigation into Dean’s personal life (Dean had a copy of everything they’d come up with, thanks to Ash) Dean had been perfectly happy to find excuses to talk with him and try to get quotes for his articles. It never happened, but Dean’d never regretted taking up Novak’s time.

But as it turned out, Dean wasn’t able to make his morning meeting with the agent, because he found himself having a fistfight with the same damn arsonist demon serial murderer he’d been asking about just around closing time.

“Get down!” he yelled to the few other employees still there and ducked as the demon kicked in the door threw a fireball at him. It smashed into the wall behind where his head had been and scorched the brick.

“Holy shit,” screamed Ash from the pool table. “What the fuck is that?”

“Goddamnit!” Ellen howled from the kitchen. “What in hell and tarnation is going on out there?”

“Demon!” Dean shouted back as it vaulted the bar. He smashed a bottle of their cheapest whiskey over its head. “Sorry!”

The demon staggered back from the blow, cursing. “You’ll regret that, Winchester,” it hissed, and began to advance on him menacingly.

“Uh-huh,” Dean said, and touched the blood sigil he’d drawn on one of the cabinets. The demon shrieked and disappeared. It wasn’t a permanent solution, but it’d have to do for now.

“What the hell— _Winchester!_ ”

“Don’t worry Ellen, I’ll pay for it,” Dean reassured her. He turned on the sink and ran the cut on his arm under cold water while she went on with “Did you have to use the booze, boy? Christ, there’s a bat around here somewhere, isn’t there?”

 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

So two days later Dean picked up an extra cup of coffee and drove back to the FBI office. He slid the coffee over to Castiel and put his feet up regardless of the files already on the desk.

“So, about that black dog,” he began.

“No,” Novak said, cutting him off. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Black dogs don’t exist.”

Dean waved the hand without coffee. “Lies, they totally exist and there’s one roaming downtown.”

“Whether or not you think there is such a thing, that was supposed to be yesterday’s conversation,” Novak rebutted, not looking up from his paperwork. His shoulders were set tight—his voice was tense. Something had his nuts in a twist. “Which you weren’t here for. Did it have to do with the calls of a public disturbance involving your secondary place of employment night before last?”

“Jesus,” Dean said mildly, frowning a little. “Don’t tell me you were  _worried_.”

Novak gave up on his paperwork and looked at him, perfectly neutrally.

“Yeah, okay,” Dean admitted readily enough. “The arsonist demon serial murderer came in and tried to whack me. I spent the rest of the night demon proofing the bar and cleaning up the mess, so I took the day off and slept in instead.”

The agent’s neutral look melted into one of irritation. “You expect me to believe that?”

Dean shrugged, privately more than a little delighted at pulling Novak’s tail. Telling with the truth was  _so_ much easier in this situation. “You’re the FBI’s designated supernatural squad,” he teased. “Why don’t you tell me?”

“With you, there’s no telling.”

Dean eyed Novak—something was definitely eating at the guy.

“Dude, did I actually throw you off with the dinner invitation the other day?” he asked. Gabriel’s badly-suppressed snort from the corner told him he was probably on the right track.

“If you think something so insignificant as a misleading invitation is enough to compromise my professionalism, I can’t help you,” Novak said waspishly.

“Great,” Dean said promptly, acting sort of on instinct and sort of on sheer chutzpah. “Then how about we do dinner tonight? For real, I mean.”

Novak looked at him blankly, mouth slightly agape. That was definitely a win.

“What kind of food do you like? Because there’s this really great place for Italian by the 93 in that little shopping area with the movie theater  _and_ they have some pretty amazing cannoli.”

“Uh,” Novak said.

“Oh by the way,” Dean barreled on. “Stop calling me Mr. Winchester. My name is Dean.”

“I—Dean,” Novak said slowly, clearly picking his words carefully. “I’m not sure if this is the best idea.”

“That means he accepts,” Gabriel sang from his corner. “You can pick him up from the station at six o’clock.”

“Great,” Dean said, standing up and making for to leave while Novak made little sputtery noises. “Six o’clock on the dot I’ll be here. Oh, and one more thing—I ID’d your demon; it’s wearing an orthodontist by the name of Jennifer Stanton who was reported missing around three months ago.” He slapped the desk in farewell, smirked at Novak’s look of astonishment, and walked out.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Here is what Dean knew about Agent Castiel Novak of the FBI:

His entire family went into government work. Either it was the Bureau or it was the Agency, and there were a few discrepancies in the files to suggest some family connections in even stranger places. He’d graduated from Duke University  _summa cum laude_  with a degree in criminal psychology and another in comparative religions, which seemed like complete opposites to Dean, but whatever. He went straight into the Bureau and was on the fast track to the top until there was some sort of territorial scuffle over a case in Cas was investigating and a report filed by him (which Dean couldn’t get ahold of—more’s the pity) that got him sent into a psych evaluation and a stalled career. Dean was willing to bet money Cas had seen something and then took a hit for being too honest.

But that was only what his files looked like. Yeah, maybe Dean remembered a little too much—there were the answers to several preliminary medical and psychological evaluations in the files, and their parents had always taught them to be extra thorough when dealing with potential enemies but somehow he didn’t think that excused him for knowing the agent’s favorite color was gray; then again, Cas had initiated an investigation on Dean after a couple weeks of running into him at crime scenes.

The personal interactions are just as informative. Over the year that Dean had talked with him—from the hostile interrogative scenes early on to the irritated courtesy of constant reporter badgering to the dry tolerance they were currently exchanging banter in daily—Dean had learned that Cas was devoted to his job to the detriment of his health, was so honest he could only lie by omission or by editing tangentially related bits into related-sounding answers, never went out or had any fun on his own unless he was dragged somewhere by Gabriel or his dick of a brother Balthazar, almost exclusively ate burgers when he was eating something he didn’t make at home, and preferred cats over dogs. He had a very dry sense of humor, understood nothing related to pop culture past the 80s, and once pranked Gabriel by giving him a lollipop filled with jelly made out of ghost peppers after Gabriel mixed up all his files on purpose.

And all of this didn’t even come  _close_  to the little things, like that puzzled eyebrow thing Cas did when Dean said something he didn’t understand, or the small smile he’d get when he made a joke Dean laughed at, or the way he’d stop looking so wrung out when Dean brought him coffee and maybe a muffin or a cinnamon roll in the morning. The look of concentration when he focused on his paperwork, the twitchy thing he did with his fingers when he was puzzling something out, the sudden mobility an exasperated rolling of the eyes leant to his face.

…okay. So maybe now that Dean thought about it, he’d been a little too interested in Agent Novak. About time he tapped that ass.

(And if things went bad, well, he could always bother Gabriel. He, at least, knew how to have a good night on the town.)

 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Dean parked the car and left it running in the no parking zone right in front of the FBI building while he sauntered through the doors, fully prepared to drag Novak from his office kicking and screaming. To his surprise, the man in question was just coming out, fiddling with his tie.

“Cas,” Dean said cheerfully. “I was just coming to see you.”

Novak shot him a look Dean couldn’t interpret. “‘Cas’?” he repeated skeptically as he stopped in front of Dean.

“Yeah,” Dean breezed. “You know, short for Castiel. I can’t go on a date calling you Agent Novak, can I?”

Cas stared at him, then his face did this funny thing that looked like a cross between that confused moue and a weird irritated affection. “No,” he said. “I suppose not.”

Dean smiled at him over this odd fluttery feeling he had in his stomach, and gestured to the door. “Let’s get a move on, then. Unless you’d rather eat the break room refrigerator’s questionable contents?”

“Thank you, no.”

“Great,” Dean said, leading him outside to his car, engine rumbling steadily. He patted the hood. “I have a reservation at this place I know. Hop in!”

Cas sat himself with a peculiar preciseness, as though he wasn’t completely comfortable doing this, but Dean wasn’t surprised given how little the poor guy got out.

“So how’re your cases going?” he asked as they pulled out of the parking area.

Cas’s hesitation was marked. “Fine,” he said after a brief pause. “Or so I hope.”

Dean waited, but Cas didn’t say anything else. Clearly he wasn’t going to get anywhere with that line of conversation.

“How knowledgeable about you would I have to be to seem creepy?” he asked instead, looking around to make sure he was clear for his right-hand turn.

“Very,” Cas answered promptly. “Since I’m 85% sure you’re the one behind the server discrepancies in the supernatural section of the Bureau’s database and you likely have access to some of my records.”

Dean whistled. “Only 85% sure?” he wheedled, wondering how he was going to tell Ash he’d been noticed.

“I was under the impression that your specialties were writing, bartending, and mayhem, not computers. I figured it was your brother who was running the programs for you.”

Dean cackled. “Fair enough,” he said. “And close, but no. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Mhmm,” Cas said, only faintly sardonic. “It’s not like I’ve got my own files on you or anything.”

“Of course not,” Dean agreed. “And just so we’re clear—tonight, everything is off the record, nothing gets printed.”

Cas gave him a look, like  _really?_

“Yeah really. Tonight we are going to have  _fun_ ,” Dean declared. “What do you do for fun, besides go through old case files anyway?”

“I play with my cat.”

“You have a cat?”

“Yes.”

“And you play with it for fun?”

“Dean,” Cas said with deliberate emphasis, “you cannot comprehend the joy one can find in watching a cat try to fight its way out of a towel.”

 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Conversation flowed pretty freely after that. They went from discussing Cas’s cat to discussing cats in general (“I don’t really care one way or another,” Dean offered) to favorite kinds of food to Dean’s family. And, halfway through the meal, to what got Dean into writing for a paper that was convinced Osama bin Laden was still alive.

“Oh, well, it’s in the family,” Dean explained, not failing to note the analytical gleam of the eyes in Cas’s carefully polite expression. “Don’t bother psycho evaluating me or anything. I’m just a family man and it was the thing to do, all this supernatural business.”

He watched the way Cas settled back a little as he asked “What do you mean?” and took another drink of his beer.

“Well,” he began, fully prepared to spin the truth into a drama, “you know, classic Romeo and Juliet story. She was the daughter of a premier hunter clan, he was the heir to a legacy of arcane mysticism and occult lore, complete opposites. They ran off and eloped, and—”

An alarm went off, interrupting them. Someone yelled “Fire! Everybody out!”

“What?” Cas said, instantly in cop mode. Smoke started to billow from the kitchen area and a woman screamed.

“Oh, shit,” Dean said, with a sinking feeling about what was going to happen next.

The doors to the kitchen blew out with a body leading the way; a guy wearing a chef’s whites smacked into the wall. Other patrons screamed en masse and started fleeing for the exit.

“I give your entrance a seven out of ten,” Dean yelled to the demon wearing Jennifer Stanton, orthodontist, as it strode in with an ugly look on her pretty face. “Hasn’t anyone told you that understated is better?”

“Dean,” Cas said warningly, gun already in hand.

“Unless that’s one of Colt’s or you’ve got devil’s traps carved in the bullets that’s not gonna work,” Dean said with the click of the safety coming off.

“I’ll take my chances,” Cas growled. “Put your hands up!” he yelled, sliding out of the booth and advancing with his gun drawn.

Dean cursed, hurriedly painting out another banishing sigil. Before he could get more than a few strokes down, he was flying backward and slammed into a wall, held up by an invisible hand around his neck.

“Not so fast,” snarled the demon, waving another hand and sending Cas tumbling into another booth. “I’ve got you now, Winchester. You’re going to fucking  _pay_.”

“What’d I do?” Dean managed to gasp out. “Because I’m pretty sure that look you’ve got going there is all your idea.”

“Shut up,” the demon fumed, and tightened the telekinetic grip. Dean choked. “You don’t remember? Just a few nights ago you  _banished_  me, and a month before that you  _exorcised_  me!”

There was the report of a gun, and the demon staggered forward a little. Dean dropped back to the floor wheezing, groping for the knife he had tucked in his waistband in the small of his back.

“Ow,” the demon said nastily, turning ominously to glare at Cas, half-hidden behind a booth seat. Cas scowled and started spitting out a good old fashioned exorcism chant, double time. The demon shrieked and threw a table at him.

Dean saw his opening, took advantage of the demon’s distraction, and knifed it in the shoulder. The demon screamed and sparked as Dean raced through what was left of the exorcism. A lucky shot had him flying again, this time _very painfully_  and with ominous cracking noises from his arm, but Cas’s fucking gorgeous gravel mountain of a voice took up right where he left off, yelling out the last line and a half without pause.

There was a howl; Jennifer’s mouth opened impossibly wide and the column of black smoke spewed out and onto the floor, burning a hole in the carpet as it disappeared. The girl collapsed.

A brief moment of silence followed. Clothes rustled from Cas’s direction; Dean hazarded a guess that he was checking Jennifer over.

“Well,” Dean said from where he was sprawled out on top of a table. “You can’t accuse me of not showing you a good time.”

Cas walked into his view, hefting Dean’s knife. “Jennifer Stanton is dead,” he said flatly.

“Damn,” Dean said.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

His arm turned out to be broken, which sucked. So did the hospital bills, which were stupidly expensive. Sam got him out almost as soon as the bone was set, and hovered like a thundercloud while the FBI took Dean’s statement. They didn’t look too happy, but they kept it short; it helped that Dean was loopy as all hell and rambled into unnecessary detail about how he and Cas had been getting a meal and commiserating about work when arsonist Jennifer Stanton had walked into the restaurant haloed by fire. Things had gotten explodey and the next thing he knew, he had a broken arm.

“I don’t know how you do it,” Sam said in the car, “but you have a penchant for spectacular smackdowns in front of  _everybody_.”

“The only other person who saw what went down was Cas and he’s not tellin’,” Dean snapped back. “Bite me.”

 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

He spent most of the next two days sleeping—and drugged—and it wasn’t like he was expecting fucking flowers or anything, but all he got from Cas was a message left on his phone saying that he would call back later and just wanted to know how Dean was doing.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

On the third day after the ruined date, he walked into Cas’s office and plunked one of those stupid drink carafe things with two cups of coffee on his desk because he only had one arm and couldn’t carry two drinks without it.

“So how’s your investigation of the arsonist demon serial murderer going?” he grumped, taking one of the cups. The nice drugs the hospital had given him had run out yesterday and now he was taking over the counter stuff for the pain, which didn’t work nearly as well.

Novak looked at him, bemused. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m back at work,” Dean growled. “Too many medical bills not to be. Are you still talking to me, or do I need to butter Gabriel’s muffin now?”

Gabriel toasted him with his generic office coffee without looking up. “You can butter my muffin whenever you want, sweetheart,” he crooned.

“Why wouldn’t I be talking to you?” Novak said.

Dean shrugged, and regretted it. “I dunno. I mean, we duked it out with a fucking demon, and you didn’t even call afterwards.”

“Jealous,” Gabriel muttered.

“Can it,” Dean warned.

Novak sighed. “It wasn’t that,” he said.

“Dude it totally was,” Gabriel interjected. He put his hand up and told Dean conspiratorially “That’s all he’s been working on for the past 48 hours.”

“Gabriel,” complained Novak.

“He’s been squaring it away so no one takes another look at you,” Gabriel went on. “And don’t say I’m interfering with the case, Christ. You two have been like lovesick puppies for the past six months, get  _on_ with it.”

“What?” Dean said.

“Nope,” Gabriel said to no one in particular, sounding long-suffering. “I cannot deal with the level of blindness in this room. I’m getting more coffee and you guys can work out your date-turned-brawl.”

“Uh,” Dean said as Gabriel marched out of the room. Novak put a hand over his face; he looked like he was concentrating very hard on counting to ten, which clearly wasn’t good.

“Right,” Dean said slowly. This situation wasn’t awkward at all. “Um.”

“Look, Mr. Winchester,” Novak began, massaging the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry. I was just trying to minimize the amount of time that would be demanded of you in the investigation.”

So they were back to Mr. This and Mr. That. Ouch. “Uh-huh,” Dean said, keeping his voice neutral.

Novak eyed him and went on, voice kept carefully even. “I also wanted to ask if you had any more supernatural denizens following you, because I would like to know what to bring on our next date in the event that they attack at a less than desirable moment.”

Dean blinked.

Cas smiled, very slightly. “You know,” he said. “Off the record.”

Dean found himself grinning. “Does tonight sound good?” he asked hopefully.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If, for whatever reason you want more of Castiel and cats, "ira fratrem, per feles" and "Cockroach Pie" are both things I wrote a ways back where he is one. (I like cats, okay??)


	2. Sam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Samuel Winchester was—how should he put it?—dedicated to saving people, hunting things. You know, the family business. Granted, this dedication hadn’t really set in until a murderous demon, ticked off by a couple of its friends getting killed, broke into Sam’s house and killed his girlfriend Jessica.

The shape-shifter gurgled as it choked on its own blood. Sam pulled the silver knife out of its throat and slipped it through its ribs now that the kill was quiet. _Try your hardest never to make a job loud_ , he remembered mom telling him. _Once it goes loud, everything goes pear shaped and usually things explode_.

Granted, he was pretty sure mom’s family were the ones starting the explosions. Guess if it’s drawn outside attention, you might as well end it with a bang.

He quickly wiped the knife clean on a rag and stuffed it in his bag of things to dump in the sewer, peeling off his gloves in similarly quick movements. Just because nothing crazy had happened so far didn’t mean it would stay quiet. Getting out fast was just as essential.

It was a pity this hadn’t been a demon, but whatever. This shifter had a nasty habit of beating up girls while looking like their significant others. Sam couldn’t exactly let that continue, could he?

Also, he’d probably exonerated one of his colleague’s clients. He should probably let Jenkins know to look into this when he had the time.

Out the fire escape, because this guy chose to stay in a shitty apartment when not wrecking people’s lives. Keep the mask on until you’re in the alley with a manhole, drop your shit in the sluggish current, walk through the sewer route until you get to a street you know has no cameras.

Ten minutes later he was huffing sewer air out of his lungs on a quiet residential street that was more or less entirely foreclosed. Sam had parked a couple blocks away, and it wasn’t long before he was listening to the strains of some motet by Josquin des Prez on NPR.

His phone buzzed, and buzzed again—a call. The number was unknown. “Hello?” he said cautiously.

Pause. Breathing. “ _Sam Winchester_ ,” a voice hissed, and cackled eerily. Sam ended the call immediately.

“That wasn’t weird at all,” he muttered to himself.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Samuel Winchester was—how should he put it?— _dedicated_ to saving people, hunting things. You know, the family business. Granted, this dedication hadn’t really set in until a murderous demon, ticked off by a couple of its friends getting killed, broke into Sam’s house and killed his girlfriend Jessica. Because it wasn’t like frickin’ Abbadon hadn’t butchered his parents a couple years before that, oh no.

Before that, Sam had been pretty content to let Dean handle the more physical things like beating the shit out of asshole werewolves while Sam went and read through his father’s library of Unspeakably Great And Terrible Occult Knowledge. Hell, Dean used to like doing it, too (probably because Sam was better at their dad’s pop quizzes on the nightly assigned reading).  But after Jess, there was a burning hunger for justice that canning criminals in the court room didn’t quite satisfy. And also a desire to find the demon who killed her to make it pay, the little bastard.

These days, Sam spent his time persecuting assholes and hunting down whatever monsters showed up in town. His free time was collecting information on demonic society, which was surprisingly scarce, even in the massive library of the Men of Letters. He had feelers out through as many of his contacts as possible—excluding the odd vanished one or two who were probably time traveling by accident (it happened more often than one would think!)—and things were still more sketchy than not. Dean kept telling him he’d burn out if he kept doing this, but Sam was perfectly aware of the necessity for balance and made a decent effort to get out every once in a while.

‘Every once in a while’ being an occasion like… Dean’s birthday, for example.

“So you’re Castiel’s partner, right?” Sam said to Gabriel. He didn’t really need the clarification; he’d memorized the guy’s face at the first interview he’d had to accompany Dean to, way back when.

“Yep,” Gabriel said with a brilliant smile. “And you’re his brother, aren’t you?”

“That would be correct,” Sam said, waving for Ash to get him another beer. They were, of course, at the Roadhouse; Dean was unwaveringly loyal in his choice of eating establishments. Also, it meant that Ellen, Jo, and Ash could participate.

Or Jo, at least. Ellen was still manning the bar and Ash was serving. Jo was busy chatting up Dean, who was on his way to getting very smashed, and Castiel was busy looking fondly at Dean, which was just weird. Not that Sam had anything against the guy (asides from being FBI), it was just so impossible for anyone to actually realize how gross Dean really was and still want to be in the same vicinity as something other than a friend that he still wasn’t sure Castiel was human.

“…to know you,” Gabriel was saying. Sam smiled and nodded. “Anyone who’s related to Dean-o is worth talking to, I think.”

“Wh—really? Okay, I _know_ Dean has to have done some pretty crazy stuff to get Cas to like him, but I didn’t realize he’d made such an impression on you,” Sam said, only half-joking.

“Eh.” Gabriel shrugged. “Guy’s been coming into our place demanding quotes for the past year, you gotta give him credit for tenacity.”

“Yeah,” Sam said dryly. “He does that. The prank wars are never-ending.”

Gabriel snickered. “Well, he picked the right guy. Cas is a sneaky bastard.”

Excellent—an opportunity to learn about Dean’s new thing from a third party who, with luck, was just as bemused by the situation as Sam was.

“No way,” Sam said, putting in just enough disbelief to get Gabriel talking. “Cas? I mean, he’s quiet, but…”

“But, nothing. Hell yeah he’s quiet, but—” Gabriel leaned in conspiratorially. “It’s the kind of quiet you use when you want to save up for the big things, you know? That’s how he got bumped to our division, at any rate.”

“What division is that?” Sam smiled harmlessly. “The ‘Talk To Reporters’ division?”

Gabriel shot him a withering look. “Oh come on, Winchester, you’re perfectly aware of what we do.”

Sam almost spit out his drink, but he restrained the urge and felt he did a pretty good job at covering the impulse from the agent.

“Gabriel,” Castiel interrupted, “be nice.”

Gabriel grinned at him impudently. “What? It’s not like _I’m_ set to become his brother in law.”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” Dean said, elbowing Castiel slightly as Jo headed back for the kitchen. “Sammy’s a big boy, he can take care of himself.”

“I bet he is,” Gabriel quipped with a very obvious once-over. Dean choked on his drink.

“That devolved quickly,” Sam said acidly.

“See, he hates that name, but then he makes that face.”

“ _Sammy_ ,” Gabriel said, somewhere between surprise and glee. “Hah, you’re right. That was a great face.”

Sam decided to persist. “Whatever. But no, seriously—I know Dean told me at some point, but what do you guys do with the FBI anyway?”

“Special Investigations,” Castiel said promptly. Dean was shooting a ‘ _what are you doing, idiot’_ look at him over the agent’s shoulder.

“That sounds pretty weird,” Sam said blithely, ignoring his brother. “What is it, the kidnapping division?”

“Amongst other things,” Gabriel said smoothly. “Mostly we handle the cases no one else wants to.”

“Like, the tougher stuff,” Dean threw in, arm around Cas’s shoulder. Cute. “They’re total badasses. Well, Cas is, anyway.”

“You asshole,” Gabriel said, offended, and must’ve kicked Dean under the table or something because there was a brief exchange of the two of them doing something accompanied by rustling cloth and thudding noises and Sam got kicked in the crossfire. He rolled his eyes and managed to exchange a commiserating look with Castiel.

“Settle down,” said Dean’s boyfriend, exasperation indicating this was a common experience. Weird. Also, irritating—Dean hadn’t told him he was close with Gabriel—now there was the potential of having to deal with two agents if things went south.

Not that dealing with the two was something Sam _wanted_ to do—he actually was happy that Dean had found, well, someone. To date steadily, and not just go through one after the other. Sam just really wished that Dean hadn’t picked a fucking FBI agent whose whole job was to investigate cases related to the supernatural.

“Fine, fine,” Gabriel said, pushing himself out of the booth. “I gotta take a leak anyway.”

“Well, he’s certainly having fun,” Dean said, all pseudo whine.

“So are you,” Sam said, feeling a little more comfortable now that they were down to one FBI agent.

Dean half threw up his left hand. “What do you expect?” he cried. “It’s my birthday!”

“Yeah, and you’ve been holding hands with Cas for the last half hour,” Sam said teasingly with a grin to Castiel, whose face started to look slightly pink.

“Well how about you?” Dean said. Sam felt his phone vibrate in his pocket—only once, so it was a text. He slid it out and clicked open the screen.

“Eh,” he said in return. _Murderer_ , said the message. The number still came up as unknown. “I just… haven’t found anyone interesting yet.”

“Jesus Christ, I leave for five minutes and you’re discussing love lives?” Gabriel asked, suddenly sliding back into the booth. Sam stiffened slightly—he hadn’t even noticed the guy coming back. “What is it, now that you two are banging each other over the desk you automatically need to know about everyone else’s sexploits?”

“ _Gabriel_ ,” Castiel said sharply.

Dean was blushing. “No,” groaned Sam, “I don’t want to know. Really.”

 “Oh you should’ve seen their faces when I walked in,” Gabriel insisted. “It was— _mmph!_ ”

“No,” Sam said sternly, hand firmly over the agent’s mouth. Gabriel made a face and licked it, but Sam had been raised with Dean and managed to wipe it all over the guy’s face before he got out of range.

“Eww! Dean, your brother is mean,” Gabriel complained.

“What can I say? Don’t mess with the moose,” Dean informed him.

Gabriel’s face turned predatory; the grin he turned on Sam was all teeth. “Wanna bet?”

 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Two days later, Sam got another of the mysterious calls.

“ _Heard from your girl lately?”_ the voice asked, nastily amused. “ _Jess, is it? Oh, right, she’s dead._ ”

Sam felt like he couldn’t breathe for a moment. “I’m sorry?” he said.

The laughter started up again, screeching and hysterical. A click—the other party hung up.

Sam sat for a minute, silently willing his fingers to uncurl from the fists they’d become. Slowly, he wrote down the message, date, and time he received it, right next to the others, and determinedly went back to researching the effectiveness of magically manufactured sunlight versus natural sunlight in combating vampires.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

The next morning, he ran into Gabriel at the coffee shop near his law firm. The diminutive agent was sipping a gigantic creation with too much whipped cream to be remotely appealing.

“Why hello there,” Sam said, not bothering to hide his surprise. “What’re you doing here?”

Gabriel shrugged. “I like the coffee.”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you supposed to be working?”

“Oh, I am,” Gabriel assured him. “I’m looking into a lead on a murder that happened about two weeks ago. Apparently the guy used to work here.”

Sam made sure to keep his reactions loose and easy, though he was sure he stopped breathing. Thank god for all those bullshitting skills being a Winchester got you. “Really? What happened?”

Gabriel shook his head. “Wish I could tell you, kid,” he said, simple and easy and like he didn’t even give a shit.

Just like that, Sam’s cool slipped just a bit. “Such a dedicated law enforcer,” he commented, and couldn’t quite keep the cynicism out of his voice.

Gabriel gave him a measuring look. “You don’t hear me complaining about every time you fail to adequately prosecute assholes, do you?”  he said coolly. “Rest assured Counsel Winchester, I’m working on things. And if I manage to find out why a significant portion of this shop’s female clientele have also managed to get beaten up over the past couple months, well, so much the better.”

“Uh-huh,” Sam said slowly. Did Gabriel seriously think the ‘domestic’ abuse was related to the barista’s murder?  

And then Gabriel was all smiles. “But hey, why talk about such depressing topics?” he asked genially. “I’ve been keeping you too long.”

“Yeah, I should get going,” Sam agreed, and realized he’d just been dismissed. Son of a bitch. He offered a polite smile. “Still need to get my coffee.”

“Yeah,” Gabriel said. “See you around, Sam.”

Sam managed to discipline his temper enough that he didn’t punch something when he was back in his nice, private office, but it was a close thing. He was just turning back to his files on his latest case when his phone chimed a new text message.

 _If only you’d gotten home sooner, Sam_.

Chime. _I bet you could have fought me off._

 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

“No offense, Sam,” Dean began, which meant that it would of course be very offensive, “but don’t you think this whole vengeance thing is a little… don’t you think you’re into it a little too much?”

Sam was scanning the cemetery with their handy night-vision binoculars. Thank god for family inheritance, they never could have afforded them without some sort of credit card scam otherwise. “Is this another one of those ‘you’re working too hard’ conversations?”

“Not really.”

“Great,” Sam said shortly. “Then there’s nothing more to discuss.”

“Except for the fact that you’re basically turning into a robot.”

“I’m not a robot, Dean.”

“Look,” Dean said, sounding frustrated. “I didn’t mean… Jesus, Sam, when was the last time you did anything for fun?”

“Your birthday?” Like, duh?

“That wasn’t you having fun, that was you fulfilling an obligation and then trying to sweet talk Cas’s partner into telling you about him.”

“Standard operating procedure,” Sam shot back. “‘Know your enemy’, remember?”

“Cas isn’t an enemy!”

“ _Agent_ Castiel Novak _is_ ,” Sam snapped, dropping the binoculars to glare at Dean. “I know you don’t do a whole lot in the field, Dean, but seriously, this is literally the most basic shit. Setting aside the fact you’re _dating_ the guy, he still works for the people who’ll put us behind bars for doing our jobs.”

Dean studied him silently. “I didn’t realize you’d become the job,” he said quietly.

“People change, in case you haven’t noticed.” He had the binoculars back up; he was going to call an end to the stakeout in another hour if the ghoul didn’t show.

“Look, man, I get it,” Dean said flatly. “You and Jessica—I’ve never seen you happier.”

“Shut up,” Sam said.

“And what happened was goddamn awful,” Dean went on, relentless. “And yeah, whatever, me ‘n Cas have only been a thing for four months, but I can’t imagine—I think I might do what you’re doing if something happened to him. If I thought I had a chance to get back at whoever did it? I’d go for it.”

“Shut _up_.”

“But that wouldn’t really solve anything. Even if I managed to gank the asshole—“ Dean swallowed audibly, and if Sam didn’t want this conversation over so badly right now he would be marveling at the unimaginable sight of Dean fucking Winchester awkwardly confessing the depth of his feelings—“like, what would I even do? Dance on his grave? Cas’d still be gone. Jessica is _gone_ , Sam.”

Sam opened the door and got out.

“What the—Sam?”

“The ghoul just walked in,” Sam gritted out through his teeth. “You stay here.”

Dean didn’t, obviously, but it was certainly the end to that conversation.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Jessica had been everything. Even now, Sam couldn’t really sort through the bewildering array of emotions every time she came to mind. There was the absolute, perfect joy just _of_ her, and then the sudden choking stab of knowing that that joy was unobtainable, like her; anger (at the demon), anguish (bone deep), the remembered honeymoon coupley-ness of when they started dating, the giddy joy of the touch of her skin against his. A thousand memories were tied up in the press of lips to his, the way her hand fit in the crook of his arm, the sturdy strength of her body even as he wrapped her into a tight embrace.

All these things were present every moment of every day. Combined with the little marble headstone and vase after vase of wilted flowers was more than Sam could take. It was so much easier to hunt, to search, to do anything to keep his mind from those dangerously overwhelming paths.

Like now, for example. The poor girl who’d been sucked into the vamps’ nest—all dead now—she’d thrown him back into the miasma of the mind with the way her long blond hair curled ever so slightly, her sweet mouth in the gaped slack of death. Sam couldn’t move, couldn’t leave, and that was a problem because this had been a messy affair and someone was sure to come running but _Jessica Jessica Jessica_ , _oh god why_.

Something vibrated at his hip—his phone. Sam fumbled it out. _“She looks just like her,”_ crooned the unknown number. _“So sweet, so innocent. You should’ve seen her face when I ripped out her—_ ” fuck them, fuck _that_ , _crash bang smash._ He couldn’t see it, but he didn’t need to to know that the stupid fucking touchscreen was shattered and totally inoperable and the demon was fucking gone.

“Jesus, kid,” someone muttered behind him, and Sam knew that voice. Dean never should’ve dated someone from the Bureau.

Gabriel was at his elbow, leading him very firmly out of the place. Sam remembered himself enough to know this was a Very Bad Idea, but the agent was already coaxing him into the passenger seat of his car and pressing a flask of something into his hands. Sam sipped it shakily—it was _very_ Irish coffee.

Gabriel was back again, carrying Sam’s phone. He dropped it on Sam’s lap as he slid into the driver’s seat and got the engine running.

“You look like shit,” he informed the hunter, pulling away down the street. Tension ran the line of his shoulders and showed in the white-knuckled grip he had on the steering wheel. “You’ve been killing these bastards for months, and now you crack?”

“What?” rasped Sam.

“Are you still out of it?” Gabriel shot him a quick, unreadable look. “You’re still out of it. I hate to inform you kiddo, but you’re basically dripping tears and snot all over and you’re shocky as hell.”

Sam stared at him, uncomprehending.

The agent fixed him with a steady glare. “You get any on the upholstery and I’ll kill you.”

“You sound like my brother,” Sam said, astonished.

“That’s because we are secretly the same person.” Gabriel was silent for a moment. “Is that where I should take you? Your brother’s place?”

“ _No,_ ” snapped Sam, lightning fast. “No. I just need… I need to be home. I can’t—” his breath was coming fast and short—“he was _right, he was fucking right_.”

“Hey, hey! Stay with me here!” Gabriel demanded. They were racing down the freeway. “Snap out of it. What were you doing back at the house?”

“I—” _Jessica, dead_ —“vampires. It was a nest of vampires. I’ve been tracking them for about a week.”

“And the week before that?”

“Research.” Sam squeezed his eyes shut, feeling the trickling wetness that clung to his eyelashes. “I was only doing research.”

“On what?”

“On the demon.”

“What demon?”

Sam couldn’t answer that. He dropped the flask, both hands over his mouth to choke off the sob that came tearing its way out of his throat.

“Okay, okay,” Gabriel muttered inanely. “Stay with me. Did you know you’d been getting sloppier?” He didn’t wait for an answer, which was fine by Sam. “I’ve been following you for about as long as Dean and Cas’ve been dating. We thought it was Dean at first since he was at so many of the crime scenes, but that wasn’t it. It wasn’t that he knew too much, either, it was just that he was like, too good of a guy, you know? I mean obviously he was involved with some pretty heavy stuff and I would bet hard cash he caused some of our crime scenes, but he didn’t really fit the profile of dedicated murderer, you know?”

Sam fought to breathe. “Dean doesn’t do that.”

“We didn’t think so either. So I started looking into you. And you might seem pretty reputable on the outside—how the hell do you balance being a DA and hunting this shit?—but you don’t have a history of having alibis.”

Sam was barely listening. He could hardly hear over the pounding of his brain, the tears streaming down his face. It was so humiliating. “So what, you stalked me?”

“When you work for the government it’s called ‘protecting the peace’,” Gabriel informed him wryly, before saying, “Hello? Yeah, you awake?” He was talking on a cell phone.

The car came to a stop and the noise of the engine cut out when Gabriel turned it off.

“This is Dean’s house,” Sam observed as Gabriel said “I’ve got your brother outside,” to, presumably, Dean, and ended the call. “You’re observant.”

Lights flicked on. Dean came out the front door in his boxers, Castiel right behind him.

“Fuck,” Sam said.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Dean hauled Sam into the bathroom and cleaned him up while Gabriel and Castiel had coffee in the kitchen.

“You look like shit,” he told Sam, and proceeded to doctor all the cuts and scrapes tussling with a nest full of vampires usually created. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“I knew I could handle them.”

“Then why’d Gabriel have to drag your ass back home?”

“They had a girl,” Sam said, and everything started to get distant, like when he was talking with Gabriel in the car. “She looked—” His voice cracked. Clear throat, try again. “She looked like Jess.”

Very, very gently, Dean cleaned off his face with a warm washcloth.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. Sam closed his eyes and leaned against his big brother and held on very tightly, because he wasn’t sure he could stay afloat if he let go.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

A month, suspended. Sam went to work at the office, made his court appearances, and went back to his apartment. He didn’t do anything else—no cases, no research. Usually Dean came over with food and beer—there were quite a few movie-marathon nights—and every once in a while it was Castiel, too, and sometimes it was Dean and Castiel and _Gabriel_ all crammed onto his couch with him squashed in the middle, because Dean’s solution to overwhelming grief was extremely tactile comfort, and apparently neither of the FBI guys had problems with that.

(Sam could grudgingly admit that it helped. It was easier to deal with things when you felt like someone had your back.)

They were midway through a Lord of the Rings marathon. The pizza was long gone and Gabriel had just gone to the kitchen for more beer—thank god for the weekends—and Sam’s new phone buzzed. And it buzzed some more. He pulled it out—call from Unknown.

“Shit,” Sam said out loud. He wasn’t sure why he was so surprised; the caller hadn’t contacted him since the vampire hunt.

“What?” Dean asked, instantly in overprotective big brother mode.

“Pause the movie?” Sam shot to Cas.

“Round six, everyone,” Gabriel sang, two beers to a hand as he came back into the room.

Cas paused the movie as Dean caught sight of the phone screen. “Oh hell no,” he snarled.

Sam flipped it open and hit the speaker button. “Hello?” he said cautiously, two FBI agents and his brother hovering, silent.

“ _Sam Winchester_ ,” hissed the voice. “ _I see you’ve taken a break from your nightly jaunts.”_

“Look,” said Sam. “I don’t know who you are, or what you think you know about me, but I’d appreciate it if you’d stop calling me.”

“ _Oh, this is the last call I’m making,_ ” the voice assured him. _“And see, I wanted to thank you, Sam. You’re just so easy to break, it was a lot of fun taking you down._ ”

“What?”

“ _But besides the fun you’ve provided—you can see what I’ve been working on. Why don’t you take a look?_ ”

“I’m sorry, but how am I supposed to do that?” Sam asked with an edge.

“ _Well, for starters, you could change the channel. Local news is fine._ ”

“I—”

“ _Thanks, Sam,_ ” purred the voice. “ _Breaking you took out the two best hunters in the state. You never even noticed the hell gate we broke open._ ” Click.

“He’s gone,” Sam said hollowly.

Gabriel had changed the channel to the local news. The four of them watched in silence as a newscaster reported scenes of devastation in one of the outlying suburbs, where four city blocks had spontaneously burst into flame.

“Son of a bitch,” Dean said quietly.

 

 * * * * * * * * * * * *

Gabriel found Sam at the coffee shop a week later. He and Cas had rushed back to their office in the aftermath of the phone call, and they’d been working overtime so long that Dean had gloomily predicted that he would never see Cas again.

“It’s not your fault,” he said, offering Sam a cup.

The hunter took it and sat down. The office wouldn’t miss him for a couple extra minutes. “Yeah,” he said tiredly, “I know.”

“You gonna lose it again?”

Sam grimaced. “Can’t really afford to,” he said.

Gabriel humphed. “Yeah, well. You busy tonight?”

“Not really,” Sam said, and took a drink of the coffee—just the way he liked it. “Why?”

“There’s this new remake of _The Evil Dead_ out,” the agent said promptly. “Wanna go see it?”

“And compare it to the old one?”  

“Hell yeah. Ten bucks says we’re gonna hate it.”

“Sure,” Sam said, and smiled. “Yeah, I think that would be great. How about at seven?”


	3. Castiel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One week later, Dean stormed into their office while they were working and slammed a potato on Gabriel’s desk.
> 
> “What the hell did you do to my car?” he roared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late installment-- my computer was back in the shop. Insha'allah it will not happen again.

“Dean,” Castiel began slowly, pausing. He fixed a gimlet eye on the jigsaw puzzle he had been striving to finish laid out before him on the table. He scowled. “There is something wrong with the puzzle you gave me.”

“Huh?” Dean said. He was watching the latest Dr. Sexy episode, so it was not really a surprise that he was not paying much attention.

“The puzzle,” Castiel repeated a few seconds later when the commercial break came. “The 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle of the Eiffel Tower you left on my desk for me as a gift a week ago. It is unsolvable.”

Dean rolled off the sofa and headed to the kitchen, presumably for another beer. “I didn’t give you a puzzle,” he said carelessly, and belched as he dropped his empty bottle in the recycle bin.

Castiel stared at the nearly completed puzzle and the handful or so pieces that he had been trying to fit into it for the past two days. Dean got another beer and casually popped the cap with his ring as he moseyed over to peer interestedly at the puzzle.

“It was on my desk,” Castiel said slowly, “and it had a bow on it, and a post-it in your handwriting.”

Dean tried pressing one of the pieces into one of the free spots. It was not a match.

“Yeah, nope,” he said. “I’m pretty sure I did not get you a puzzle. It’s like, a general rule. My life is already filled with ‘em, why bother with cardboard ones?”

How irritating. That meant…

“Gabriel,” Castiel said resignedly, leaning back into his chair.

Dean looked at him. “Gabriel?”

“Gabriel,” Castiel confirmed, waving at the puzzle. “He is rather good at forging signatures.”

Dean whistled. “You guys are in another prank war?”

Castiel drummed his fingers on the table, already feeling the mentality of being at war settle in. “Yes,” he said. “It appears so.”

“Didn’t you win the last one?”

“Yes. That is likely why he started a new one. It has been over a year since our last engagement.”

“That or he’s bored,” Dean suggested helpfully.

Castiel sighed. “It could be that, too.”

“Put hair removal stuff in his shampoo,” Dean said, perking up. “Guy’s got hair even longer than Sammy!”

“That is a ridiculous idea.”

“Aww, c’mon,” Dean wheedled. “It works great.”

Castiel smiled at him. “So Sam’s told me.”

Dean beamed. “Precisely!” The jingle of the television station’s signal of a returning program played, drawing the reporter’s attention back to the drama of the hospital.

It was not actually a bad idea, Castiel thought idly, scooping up the unused puzzle pieces and rattling them in his hand.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

One week later, Dean stormed into their office while they were working and slammed a potato on Gabriel’s desk.

“ _What the hell did you do to my car?_ ” he roared.

Gabriel sneered. It mostly came off as ridiculous given the fact he looked like a deranged hairstylist had decided windblown haystacks were The New Thing and taken to Gabriel’s previously ludicrous mop with a scythe. “Should’ve stayed out of this, Winchester,” he taunted.

“What happened to the Impala?” Castiel wanted to know. The potato was not a helpful clue at all.

“I didn’t start anything!” Dean snarled. “And now you’ve—you’ve _shamed_ my baby! She’s an innocent! She has nothing to do with this!”

“Except for being involved with you!” Gabriel said, waving a hand at Castiel. “If you weren’t dating this bozo I would lay money down that you have sex with that car!”

“ _I would never—_ ” Dean paused and cocked his head to the side. “Huh,” he said after a second, completely derailed.

Gabriel rolled his eyes.

Dean pointed at Castiel. “We’ve got to try that.”

“Car sex?”

“Fuck, yes.”

“Wow, because I did _not_ know enough about your sex life already,” Gabriel remarked snidely.

Dean glared at him. “Don’t think I haven’t forgotten about you,” he said menacingly, and stormed back out.

“So,” Castiel said when it was clear Gabriel was not going to answer, “what does the potato have to do with the Imapala?”

Gabriel held it up. A small tin whistle and a kazoo protruded from the hole cut through it. “Stuck it in his exhaust pipe,” he said with a wink. “Every good ride’s gotta have a soundtrack, don’t you think?”

 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Thus was Dean Winchester drawn into The Great War. It was a facetious name for a silly waste of time that Castiel shamefully had to admit kept him amused as he and Gabriel dragged through some torturously long cases involving a hinkypunk, a pack of chupacabras, and possibly a zombie.

“The paperwork alone is hell,” Castiel grumbled sleepily into Dean’s neck one night.

Dean hummed. “‘re you still going on about that?” he asked muzzily, pulling Castiel in closer.

“Hinkypunks were extinct until a week ago.”

“I was inside you ten minutes ago.”

“How is that relevant to the existence of will-o-the-wisps?”

Dean groaned and kissed his crown. “Please,” he begged, “can we not talk about business or prank wars in bed?”

Castiel wriggled a little in answer, seeking to press up even closer to the hunter despite the fact that there was already nothing between them. He subsided after a bit, unsatisfied.

“Have you gotten the smell out of the Impala yet?” he asked instead. In addition to the potato-whistle-kazoo, Gabriel had also left small bits of cheese to melt in various metal parts of the car and had rearranged the weapons compartment in the trunk (which Castiel also had not known about). The weapons were an easy fix, but the cheese left a strange odor that, short of tearing the Impala to pieces, Dean could only wait out.

Dean growled a negative.

“Tomorrow,” Castiel whispered to cheer him up, “we can try car sex _on_ the car.”

Dean shifted a little.

“Pull it into the garage,” Castiel went on teasingly in undertone, knowing exactly how raspy he sounded right now, “and you could spread me out on the hood…”

Dean growled again, but it had nothing to do with irritation. “This isn’t a prank is it? You’re not going to get me all excited for this and then pull another all-nighter are you?”

“Why would I want to do that?” Castiel murmured around a slow, wet kiss. Dean’s answer came in the extremely satisfactory form of a pleased moan.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

The next day, Castiel took advantage of the weather and surreptitiously loaded Gabriel’s umbrella with half a dozen pens, a whole box of paper clips, and a cheap abandoned fork from the break room.

(“Goddamnit, Castiel, I almost got hit by lightning!” Gabriel shouted over the intercom, causing an uproar in the office when nobody could shut off the obnoxiously horrific disco music he had also managed to rig to play _ad nauseum_. )

A few days later, Dean inadvertently drew Sam into the firefight when Sam tripped the bucket filled with red Kool-Aid Dean had set up to fall on whoever next opened Gabriel and Castiel’s office door while Castiel was out questioning witnesses. Sam promptly broke into Dean’s house and put itching powder into all of Dean’s clothes.

(“Not to mention he friggin’ _booby trapped the dumbwaiter_ ,” Dean complained later to Castiel. “It almost knocked me into the priest hole!”

Castiel eyed him. “I was unaware your house had such things.”)

Gabriel later superglued all of Castiel’s office knickknacks into different spots on his desk and lifted the entire station’s supply of acetone-based cleaning products. Dean was extremely unhappy when Castiel roped him into spending hours meticulously putting everything back into order.

(“This was the night we were going to have car sex _in_ the Impala,” Dean moaned to Sam when he managed to steal five minutes in a supply closet.

“ _I really did not need to know that_ ,” Sam yelled, and hung up.)

 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Dean walked in without preamble and thunked a cup of heavenly goodness on Castiel’s desk before wearily sinking into the chair in front of him.

“Don’t exaggerate,” Castiel rasped. He had spent the night in the office, tying up loose ends in some of his reports, and was not prepared to tolerate much at all by way of over dramatization or other similar wastes of time.

“You’ll feel better after you drink that.”

“I’ll feel better when Gabriel is hideously maimed and forever incapable of pranking anyone,” Castiel retorted, but he gingerly took a sip of the drink anyway.

Dean eyed him and handed over the bag containing his morning pie. “You should probably have this too. When was the last time you ate anything?”

“Midnight, I think. I was just trying to—” Castiel paused, fork halfway to his mouth. He lowered it slowly. “Since when am I allowed to eat your morning pie?”

Dean looked at him queerly, like ‘ _dude, how is that not obvious,_ ’ and said “Since you looked like you could use it?”

Castiel stared at him.

Dean raised both eyebrows and reached for it. “I mean, if you don’t want it—”

“No, no,” Castiel said hastily, berating himself for the slightly hurt look Dean had taken on. “It’s just unexpected is all.” He smiled apologetically.

Dean chuckled as Castiel applied himself to the food. It was delicious.

“So, finished yet?” Dean asked, leaning back.

“No,” Castiel said around a mouthful of flaky goodness. “Almost there, though. Only one more report to go.”

“Good for you!” Dean enthused.

Castiel scraped up another bite and offered it to Dean. “You want some?” he asked.

Dean shook his head. “Nah, I’m good.”

“It was your pie,” Castiel said. He yawned. “Sorry,” he muttered, and took another drink of the coffee. “This coffee is not doing its job properly.”

“Oh I dunno,” Dean said idly. “Maybe you’ve just been up too long.”

“You’re remarkably calm about that,” Castiel noted, drinking again. “Unless—” He eyed the coffee and the pie with sudden suspicion. “Is this part of a prank?” He was pretty sure there was an unofficial truce between the two of them… Castiel reached up to stifle another yawn. How was he more tired now?

“What? No. No, of course not.”

Castiel looked at him. Dean was looking far too smug.

“Dean,” he began warningly, and paused when things flickered a little. There was something very, very wrong.

“You know what, you look exhausted,” Dean said with a nasty smile. “Why don’t you take a little nap?”

 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Castiel became dimly aware that he was cold, his face was in something wet, and Dean was talking to him.

Or something that sounded like Dean. Castiel should have known Dean would never be so casual about giving away pie.

“Go ’way,” he managed fuzzily as Dean’s words distinguished themselves from the general wall of white noise.

“Cas, oh my god. Are you okay?”

“No,” Castiel said very definitely into the floor. Which was… tile? He spent a moment judging whether linoleum would be warmer or cooler while Dean said more things.

When he had better motor control, he jiggled his wrists and concluded from the feel of it that he was wearing his own handcuffs. “What did you drug me with?”

“Nothing,” Dean said, sounding upset.  “Cas, it wasn’t me. It’s a shape shifter.”

“What?”

“A shape shifter jumped me last night,” Dean said shortly. Ouch, no wonder he sounded stung. “He stole my face and my clothes and walked out this morning.”

“Oh,” Castiel said, and things started coming into focus. His face was pressed against white tile and the base of a sink swam in front of his eyes—it looked like his arms were locked around it. “Where’re we?”

“My bathroom,” Dean told him glumly.

“The downstairs one or the upstairs one?”

“The secret basement one.”

Castiel blinked at that and tested his range of movement. He moved his head a little and spotted Dean, wrapped up in a ridiculous amount of rope and wearing only the joke boxers Gabriel had given the hunter for his birthday.

“How did he get into the secret basement?” Castiel asked. He thought it was a reasonable question— _he_ hadn’t known about any secret basements.

“You know, the usual,” Dean answered gruffly. “They take on your face and they get all your memories with ‘em.”

“Really?” Castiel said, fascinated. Shape shifters were not normal supernatural fare for the FBI, oddly enough.

“Yeah, which is bad news for you,” Dean said. “Considering he was looking _just like you_ when he left!”

That took him a second. Castiel’s face, Castiel’s memories—

“It has access to everything,” Castiel breathed in a sort of muted horror. He would probably be more upset if he wasn’t still woozy from the drugs. Oh dear. “It can get into all my files.”

“It’s like we’re in a new Indiana Jones movie,” Dean said. “With friggin’ monster Nazis.”

“We need to get out of here,” Castiel said, and started testing the handcuffs. “Do you have anything? Can you reach in my pocket, there’s—”

“You do realize you’re just as naked as I am, right?” Dean wanted to know, but he was moving too. “Feel around in front of you, there might be something. We don’t keep a whole lot in here.”

“Bobby pins? Uh. Is there a spring in your toilet paper dispenser?” Castiel was feeling around blindly behind the sink. It felt like the pipe covering did not have a back; the floor had dirt and other grime coated around the area with the pipes. Something clanged a little under his touch; it felt like a small nail. He rolled it around, trying to get it out, and startled a small cockroach into running.

“Um,” Dean said. There was the scuff of cotton on tile grout. “Sure, let me just bash my head into it.”

Castiel huffed, busily (and a little clumsily) poking at the handcuff lock. “Never mind. Since when do you have a secret basement?”

Cautious silence. “A while?”

Castiel should have supposed his secret society boyfriend would be pretty loath to discuss the workings of the secret society. Or other secret architectural elements that might be fitted into his inherited secret society house and car. But really? A whole secret basement? In completely unrelated irritation, Castiel decided that dumbwaiters and priest holes were one thing, but secret levels of houses was a little beyond reasonable.

“I understand we have only been romantically involved for a year,” Castiel said, feeling the lock of his handcuffs click, “but there will come a time when I will not progress further in this relationship without knowing some things about you apart from the FBI files and off-the-record information you’ve permitted me to discover.” He tugged his hands free and pushed himself into sitting position.

Dean made a face at him while Castiel gingerly wiped wet off his face. “How far is that?”

“Marriage, or five solid years of commitment,” Castiel said, eyeing his hand. “Does your sink have a leak?”

“Will I meet your family before or after the ceremony?” Dean wanted to know, not without his own bland humor. “And no, you were drooling. It was adorable.”

“If you publish an article about this, I will never speak to you again.” Castiel awkwardly stood up, a little unsteady, and staggered across the room to try the door. It was also locked.

“There might be a couple razors in the mirror,” Dean told him helpfully. “Probably some painkillers, too. Untie me?”

“I don’t need painkillers.” He swung the cabinet open and was greeted by an old toothbrush and a dead mouse. “Do you even clean this thing?”

“It’s been a while,” Dean admitted.

“Right,” Castiel said resignedly, and faced with no alternatives, kicked down the bathroom door.

The secret basement—which was either a room off to the side of the actual basement or a sub-basement—was stupidly large and cluttered with all sorts of inane and (highly probably) occult objects and ingredients. Fortunately, knives featured prominently along a wall displaying a variety of weaponry.

“Whoa, easy there,” Dean said as Castiel barged back into the bathroom, a long serrated blade in hand.

“Is there anything else about these things I should know about?” Castiel demanded.

“What, knives?”

“No, shape shifters.”

“Uh… just that you kill them with silver?”

“Guess that means our files are right.” He contemplated, briefly, the possibility of leaving Dean tied up and safely out of harm’s way; but there was no guarantee the thing would come back when it already knew so much, and Dean would not be able to defend himself in such a position.

Castiel got to work, sawing at the rope. Half a minute saw Dean rubbing out the areas where he had lost circulation.

“It would be better if you stayed here to watch the house,” Castiel said bluntly as they jogged up out of the sub-basement and basement to Dean’s room for new clothes.

“Oh hell no,” Dean said. “You’re not going after this guy without me!”

“Yes I am,” Castiel said stubbornly, pulling on pants. “What if he comes back here? You know everything he knows and I am not in a position to judge what resources he could pull from this house.”

“Why, you think he’ll come back?” Dean snapped.

“He has before,” Castiel pointed out. He rifled through Dean’s bedside table and pulled out the 1911 Dean had hidden in the false bottom. He shoved it into his waistband and grabbed one of Dean’s jackets to throw on top of it, ignoring the protesting noises Dean made. “Besides, by taking my identity this has officially become a matter for the FBI. You are still technically a civilian.”

Dean looked like he really wanted to argue, but he kept his mouth closed in a grim line and nodded unhappily. He tossed a pair of shoes to Castiel.

“My dad’s old truck is in the garage,” he said tightly. “The keys should be in the basket, my second emergency cell is there too. The third drawer in the hardware cupboard has some silver bullets. I’ll call Gabriel and tell him what’s up, you get over to the station.”

“Got it,” Castiel said, and darted out to the garage.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Dean called him halfway to the station. “I couldn’t get ahold of Gabriel.”

Castiel sped through an intersection just as a light turned red and zoomed past an astonished traffic officer. “What?”

“Yeah, Sam hasn’t heard from him either. No one’s come skulking around here, though, and there haven’t been any breaking news stories about a rogue cop.”

In his rearview mirror, Castiel saw the policeman’s lights start whirling. He took the next turn hard; it would not take long if he made the next light.

“Keep me updated.” He ended the call and shoved the phone in his breast pocket. The cop behind him was speeding up now, and raced behind him through the light. Castiel ignored him and concentrated on the road, screeching to a halt in front of the office minutes later.

He left the car running and ran into the lobby. “Cassandra, where’s Gabriel?” he demanded urgently of the woman at the front desk.

She gaped at him, utterly bemused, as the police officer came charging through the front doors.

“I’m going to have to ask you to step away from the desk,” the officer barked, hand on his gun.

“I don’t have time for this,” Castiel snapped. “Cassandra, am I already here?”

Cassandra nodded, eying the officer behind Castiel.

“Sir, I need you to back away _now_.”

Castiel ignored him and darted around Cassandra’s desk and into the hall. From the officer’s yell and Cassandra’s gasp, he assumed a weapon had been drawn. Other employees stared over and around their cubicle walls as he ran down the corridor to his and Gabriel’s office.

The door was closed, the shades of the window drawn. The door was locked, of course, and so for the second time that day Castiel kicked in a door as a police officer barreled down the hallway shouting “Halt!” and his supervisor yelled from the depths of the building “ _What is going on?”_

The shifter, wearing his face, leveled a gun on him just as the door splintered open. There was a gunshot; someone screamed. He picked up the extra chair and threw it at the shape shifter, who staggered under the blow.

The officer skidded into view. He did a double take at the scene: two versions of Castiel, one nicely dressed in his business attire, one in his boyfriend’s clothes; Gabriel, gagged and cuffed to his desk, boiling mad. “What the—”

The shifter started shooting again; Castiel threw himself into the police officer, pulling Dean’s gun as he went. He took aim and fired.

It clipped the shifter. It yelled, and stumbled back into Gabriel, who promptly tripped it up and did his best to hinder any escape. It scrabbled desperately to get back to its feet.

“Freeze,” Castiel ordered, gun trained on the monster. It noticed the weapon and held still. “Officer, are you all right?”

“Yeah,” the officer said shakily.

“I’m going to need you to get over here and cuff this thing,” Castiel said, keeping his voice calm and unhurried.

“Jesus,” said the shifter, sounding _exactly_ like him. It was bizarre. “What the hell is going on?”

“I advise you to shut up,” Castiel said flatly.

“What _is_ going on here?” barked the supervisor, Rufus Turner. Castiel supposed he had come to see the ruckus; it sounded like he was in the doorway at least.

“Shape shifter, sir,” Castiel answered. To the shifter: “Not being human, you are not guaranteed any rights, but in general it would be better for you if you did not say anything that could be construed as evidence against you.”

The shifter darted a look over Castiel’s shoulder. “Turner, I swear,” it said hurriedly. “I just came in here and found my partner tied up like this.”

“Mmmph!” Gabriel threw in, and shook his head.

“Shit son, how am I supposed to know which one is which?” Turner demanded.

“Agent Novak shot it with silver,” Agent Hendrickson pointed out; he must have arrived with the supervisor. “Can’t you see the burns?”

“If someone does not cuff this thing in the next five seconds, I will shoot it,” Castiel said icily.

Turner grumbled. “This is ridiculous,” he said. “I can’t tell which is which. Hendrickson, cuff the agent on the floor; Agent Novak, please hand your weapon to this officer here.”

“I swear, I turn my back for five minutes and the office goes to hell,” Hendrickson complained, but he came in carefully around Castiel, cuffs in hand. It took some persuading, but after a few moments of scuffling, the shifter was hauled up and safely restrained.

“Bring it here,” Turner ordered, pulling out a knife. “You too, Novak. We’re going to make sure of this.”

Castiel allowed himself to be cut. It was readily apparent who was what when the shifter hissed at the touch of the blade.

“Go ahead and throw it in one of the holding cells,” Turner said, following Hendrickson as they led the thing out of Castiel and Gabriel’s office. “Officer, with us, please. Novak, free Agent Milton and sort out what this thing was after.”

“About time,” Gabriel complained when Castiel undid the belt gag. “I’ve been sitting here for a couple hours, for chrissakes!”

“When did it come in?” Castiel asked, unlocking Gabriel’s cuffs.

“Maybe eleven? They told me Dean had taken you home when I got in—oh don’t look at me like that. Today was just going to be a day of filling in paperwork, it’s not like I missed much.”

“You missed the shape shifter drugging me,” Castiel said blandly. Satisfied that Gabriel was free, he settled behind his computer and pulled up the records of the functions performed in the last hour. “Go on?”

“Ugh,” Gabriel said, and started pulling up his own logs. “Anyway, it showed up, claiming it had only gone home for a short nap. It sat there reviewing all your files until around one.”

“Until one?” There was a whole slew of file requests sent to the database that had been filled; most of them appeared to be the FBI’s data compilations on various monsters.

“Yeah,” Gabriel said dryly. “That’s when I—erm, well, I had a thing delivered to him. As a prank, you know? But since he wasn’t you, he didn’t react the way he was supposed to.”

Castiel gave him a look. “So you realized it was not me because it reacted the wrong way?”

“Welllllllllllllll…” Gabriel drew out the word like a piece of taffy. “Then I started asking too many questions I guess, because the next thing he did was whack me with your paperweight and cuff me to the chair.”

“Do I even want to know what you delivered?” Castiel asked. He copied the list of documents accessed by the shape shifter and emailed them to Turner.

“Not really. It’s all sort of moot now anyway.”

Castiel glowered as he started skimming through the traffic in and out of the computer. It looked like there had been a few emails sent out in the past hour.

“Looks like he was working with someone else.”

“Asshole,” Gabriel muttered. “Doesn’t he know how much fucking paperwork we’re going to have to do now?”

 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

“I’m gonna kill that fucking shape shifter,” Dean growled.

“That’s not possible,” Castiel said into the receiver. “It’s been moved to a secure facility. The Bureau is handling it now.”

“I don’t give a shit,” Dean said. “You haven’t been home in _three days_.”

Castiel sighed. Didn’t he know that, indeed. “I’m almost finished,” he said instead. “I just have to sign off on one last statement and then I’m out of here.”

“Are you going back to your place or coming over to mine?”

Castiel checked the clock; two in the morning. “Why are you even still awake? It’s your night off.”

“Because I want to make sure you’re going somewhere tonight.”

Castiel smiled despite himself. “I think I’ll—”

A soft snore interrupted him; he looked over to see Gabriel asleep, obnoxiously sprawled across his desk and chair.

“How fast can you get here?” Castiel asked quietly.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Twenty minutes later, the two of them watched, doing a terrible job suppressing their snickering, as the soap shavings they’d sprinkled into Gabriel’s open mouth started turning into frothy bubbles.


	4. Gabriel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Really?” Dean said, sounding bemused. “Your brothers control the FBI?”
> 
> “Not officially,” Castiel said gruffly.
> 
> “Politics,” Gabriel offered.
> 
> “Politics,” Castiel agreed, shooting him a look of gratitude.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is really starting to get away from me.

“I see you beat me to it,” Dean grunted behind him.

Gabriel eyed the hunter over the rim of his glass as Dean slid onto the bar stool next to him. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Dean caught the bartender’s attention and got a couple of shots of whiskey. “Drinking.”

Gabriel swirled the colorful cocktail he had. “Obviously. Why here? Don’t you have better shit at your place?”

The reporter downed the shots, one after another. “I was looking to get out,” he mumbled.

Gabriel sighed. Dean and Castiel had managed to get in a huge fight—which they wouldn’t tell anyone about—and now they were avoiding each other like the plague.

“Have you tried talking it out?” he wanted to know as Dean ordered some more whiskey. “Christ, are you even going to be able to drive out of here?”

“I am an excellent driver,” Dean said, offended. He pushed a shot over to Gabriel. “Besides, look at that weird fruity shit _you’re_ drinking. I could definitely be worse off.”

“You know,” Gabriel said slowly. “I don’t really want to get involved in whatever you two dumdums are doing now...  but for the love of god, you guys haven’t spoken in a _week_.”

Dean scowled. “It’s not my fault,” he said. “It’s just that Cas wants to know _everything_. And now that he knows I’m not actually making up half the shit I say, I can’t _tell_ himabout it. I never expected things to last this long!”

“You’re in a relationship,” Gabriel said, exasperated. “People in relationships _share_.” And here he was, hoping for a quiet evening; so much for that. Maybe he should call Sam to come pick up Dean. Speaking of Sam…

“Well I can’t,” Dean said shortly.

“Yeah yeah, Men of Letters secret bullshit and all that.” Gabriel said a little absently as he texted _ur big bro is getting drunk at a bar w/ me, ur in charge of getting him home._

Dean kicked him. “Don’t say it so loud,” he growled.

“Oh shut up, Winchester. You’re a legacy, you could do whatever you damn well please.” Gabriel waved the bartender over and got them both beers, forestalling Dean’s next bid for hard liquor. His phone buzzed as he got a text from Sam.

Dean looked at him queerly. “Why would you think that?” he asked carefully.

Whoops, should’ve remembered that wasn’t one of the bits of info the brothers had let slip. Gabriel kept it vague. “Eh, I know a guy who knows a guy.” He took a long drink of that beer and checked the phone: _Why is he at a bar with you?_

“Uh-huh,” Dean said.

“Look,” Gabriel said, throwing in a touch of longsuffering and plaintive to make it sound better. “Why don’t you tell me about your damn fight, and then I tell you what an idiot you are?”

Dean kicked him again. Gabriel didn’t think he’d completely forgotten the slip, but with luck it wouldn’t be on his mind by the end of the evening. “Like that’d help,” the reporter said mournfully, and drained half his beer in one go.

“Try me,” Gabriel said. _why would I know? brb letting loose the dogs of relationship advice._

* * * * * * * * * * * *

The story, as Dean told it, was that well-meaning Castiel was gradually taking over all aspects of the reporter’s life, doing his best to cut him out of and/or protect him from the supernatural scene, because Castiel was an overprotective weenie who’d never been in a serious relationship with someone who had a vastly different opinion on legality than him. This, of course, was an anathema to Dean, because if you’re in a secret society you’re supposed to keep it _secret_ , even if you’ve already basically blown it, and also the law was for ninnies who didn’t know what was really out there.

_dean has a very colorful vocabulary and also y haven’t you just inducted cas into the mol_

_Yes he does. What are you talking about?_

_srsly tho_

_…it would simplify a lot of things, wouldn’t it?_

Castiel had a different view of the whole affair.

“He has a secret compartment in _everything_ ,” Castiel said tartly at the end of a long day as they went through the tedious process of clocking out. The two of them had finished their paperwork at least an hour ago and it seemed to be a bit pointless to get caught up in the mire of research this close to the end of the workday, so Gabriel had thought he might go two for two and see if he could get Castiel to wind up at a bar as well. After a bit of warming up, he’d gotten his partner to broach the subject without any extra help at the local pizzeria.

“Almost everything in them and his secret basement is illegal,” Castiel continued, frustrated. “He won’t tell me anything that we don’t already know, and he’s started handling our cases _for us_. As though we weren’t capable of it!”

_too many secret things_ , Gabriel texted to Sam. _and insecure of his masculinity_

“He’s probably more qualified,” Gabriel pointed out. “The Men of Letters dates back at _least_ to the Roman Empire, if we can take Tacitus’ text seriously. They’ve had a long time to do this.”

_What?_

Castiel glowered at him. “Precisely. What he _could_ do is share information. It would help other agents and it would help _us._ ”

“Okay. Putting aside the fact that it’s a _secret society_ , which, clearly you’ve never been in a fraternity—you’d know the etiquette—do you think Dean would just walk out on the business after sharing all his info on us?”

_dean was right. cas wants intel bcuz he could help more ppl and get dean out of it_

Castiel huffed. “No,” he said grudgingly, “but at least it would expand the number of people who could help.”

Gabriel sighed. “Give it up, Castiel,” he counseled. “You’re not going to win this one, and it’s just going to make everyone miserable.”

_What part of secret society doesn’t Cas get?_

_ur asking me?_

_If this keeps up, things will get bloody. That or Dean will cry, which is an equally horrifying prospect._

His partner got that stubborn look. “He shouldn’t keep so many secrets,” Castiel insisted. “How can I protect him—which is _legally my job_ —if he doesn’t help me?”

“Maybe you’re not supposed to?” Gabriel ventured.

_And even if Dean spilled, the closest member would be obligated to reprimand him. Harshly. That would be me, btw._

_figures_

“If you keep texting Sam, I’m going to dump your phone into your beer.”

“See, that right there shows you’ve got control issues,” Gabriel said, but he tucked the phone away. “What about your secrets, hmm? Tell him anything about your family and how much they fucked you over?”

Castiel looked like a statue. Gabriel pointedly slurped at his pizza for the long moment it took his partner to start breathing again.

“I’m just saying,” he went on, a little quieter. “It goes both ways.”

“That has nothing to do with this,” Castiel said frigidly.

“You wouldn’t have trust issues otherwise,” Gabriel snarked back. “You’re not being fair. _Talk_ to him, you’d work things out a lot faster.”

Castiel looked like he was going to bite back, before he abruptly deflated. “This is ridiculous.”

“Yep. Come on, you’re talking to _me_ over _pizza_.”

Castiel looked bemusedly at his plate. “Really?”

“Meat lovers? Helloooooo?” Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Tell you what. You two go and sit down somewhere and talk things out, and then persuade Dean to induct you into the friggin’ secret society. Done, finished, no more secrets.”

Castiel stared at him. “I don’t know why,” he said slowly, “but when you suggest it, it sounds like a very bad idea.”

* * * * * * * * * * * *

“…and I mean, _no shit_ , it is a bad idea! He’s going to learn all your secret magical knowledge and then start teaching it to other people on the side!”

Sam grunted as his fingers flew over the laptop keyboard. The coffee shop was bustling, despite it being a sunny Saturday afternoon. “As long as he doesn’t start spreading spells and some of the more obscure bits of knowledge, he’ll be fine,” he said absently. “Have you _read_ Dean’s articles? Someone tried to get him canned for that once, but the higher-ups wouldn’t buy it.”

“Legacies, Winchester, you’re legacies, of course you can,” Gabriel said impatiently. “Didn’t you hear about that girl, Bella, in Colorado? She got caught dealing information with the Free Masons and they wiped her memory.”

“Do I even want to know how you know that?” Sam asked dryly.

Gabriel tapped his fingers restlessly on the table. “Probably not,” he grouched.

“Seriously though,” Sam said with a frown. “Do I need to get illicit access to the FBI files about us again?”

Gabriel rolled his eyes. “No,” he said, annoyed. “It’s not even like we’ve updated them since the last time you stole them.”

“Uh-huh,” Sam said, but he turned his attention back to his laptop. “I suppose getting Cas in on things would be a bad idea.”

“Dude’s tenacious,” Gabriel agreed.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

The body of the demon was rather unsettling.

“Crowley,” Gabriel said carefully, keys in hand, staring at it where it lay on the kitchen table in his small apartment, “why is the dead demon woman in my kitchen?”

“She was trespassing, darling,” the dealer drawled. “I could hardly let you just sit around and get snooped, now could I?”

“Huh.” The agent tossed his keys on the counter. “Well, what’s the haps? Haven’t seen you in a couple years.”

Crowley sneered genially. “Can’t an old friend visit for a little chat without demanding suspicion?” he teased.

Gabriel growled, and snapped the bottle of holy water hidden in his room into the kitchen and took a long pull of it. A little attitude never hurt when dealing with predators. “We didn’t exactly part in the best of circumstances,” he said dryly.

“Mmm, yes, well.” Crowley shrugged. “That was before you started hanging out with the Winchesters.”

“So?” Gabriel casually put one hand in the pocket with the pocketknife, quietly snicking the blade out. Dean, with some persuasion, had taught him and Castiel the demon banishing sigil when the hellgate in the neighborhood had been opened. “I mean, it’s not like I’m an actual member of their secret organization.”

“Well it was bad enough when you got paired with that idealistic Novak mule,” Crowley explained, and snapped a glass of what was probably whiskey out of wherever he kept it stashed. “Now you’re shacking up with the heirs to a legacy of arcane mysticism and brawn-over-brains hunters? You’re practically the last wizardly thing around. It’s bound to get _some_ people’s attentions.”

“I got their attention when I won a bet against you, too,” Gabriel pointed out serenely.

Crowley grimaced. “Yes, exactly.” He shuddered and took a drink.

“Hey, don’t worry about it. It’s not like you could’ve foreseen the goat or anything,” Gabriel said soothingly.

Crowley leveled A Look at him. “Please,” he sniffed. “I’ve gotten over _that_.”

“Uh-huh.”

The demon made a rude noise. “Anyway,” he said, clearly switching gears, “I’ve got a message for you. A warning, actually.”

“What’s it gonna cost?” Gabriel asked instantly.

Crowley shot him a dirty look. “I’m doing you a favor.”

Gabriel scowled. “Only one I can return once I know _and_ agree to the request,” he argued.

Crowley sighed, sounding frustrated. “Yes, done, whatever. The warning is this. The people who started the government hack—you and your bloody partner getting fucked with—are the same people involved in the opening of the hellgate last year.”

What Gabriel had expected? Definitely not this. “What?”

“The demon Azazel,” Crowley explained, and set the glass down on the counter. “Nasty bugger, fairly high up on the ladder. Apparently he’s planning some sort of Apocalypse.”

“Apocalypse with a capital A?” Gabriel demanded.

Crowley waved a hand. “Yes, yes, biblical prophecies actually occurring and all that. You lot need to stop it, otherwise the world ends.”

“Ooooookay, you lost me,” Gabriel admitted. “The Bible is what, real? God _exists_?”

“In a big way,” Crowley confirmed. “And actually, it’s a corruption of the True Word. Or so I’ve heard. No one’s really clear about that, but Azazel sure thinks it is.”

“What the fuck?”

“Yes, well.” Crowley twiddled his fingers in farewell. “Good luck, sweetheart.”

“But—” Gabriel scowled. Friggin’ asshole was already gone, and the lively demon lady was still bleeding on his table. “That’s what you get for gambling,” he grumbled to himself. “It’s so ostentatious everyone remembers. Why couldn’t you’ve made a deal like the rest of life’s poor shmucks?”

* * * * * * * * * * * *

The real issue, of course, was telling Dean and Sam about it without getting jumped for demonic fraternization. Fortunately Dean and Cas were still on the outs, so Gabriel could keep Cas out of things a little longer—the guy was great to have on the team, but not if Dean was along for the ride too.

Gabriel scowled in his kitchen for a while, before giving in and pulling out his cell phone to call Winchester the Younger.

“Gabriel?” Sam said, sounding surprised. Gabriel texted as a rule, because then he could send weird and humorous pictures.

“Hey Sammy,” Gabriel said with all the false cheerfulness phone calls demanded. “What’s the haps?”

There was a beat of silence. “Uh, nothing. Just getting off work, why?”

Gabriel checked the clock automatically. “What, seriously? It’s seven!”

“I had a lot of work to do!” Sam protested. “I’m taking tomorrow off anyway, I just wanted to get stuff done and get ahead.”

“Right,” Gabriel said, doing his best to let Sam know he thought he was lying. “Anyway, I need a favor. Can you get Dean and get to my place in, say, half an hour?”

Sam was definitely suspicious now. “If you call him and let him know I’ll be there in twenty minutes, maybe,” he said cautiously. “Forty minutes is probably the fastest we can be, though.”

“Awesome,” Gabriel said breezily. “I’ll let him know you’re coming. I suggest switching out your fancy suit for some work clothes though, just a heads up.” He ended the call over Sam’s sputter and dialed Dean.

“Hey Deano,” he said quickly as soon as the phone picked up. “Sam’s coming your way, be ready to move in twenty minutes.”

“Gabriel?” Shit, that was _not_ Dean. “Is something the matter?” Castiel asked, concern coming in clearly.

“Ohhh, Castiel,” Gabriel said, buying time. “Heh, did you and Dean make up?”

Dean’s voice made its way down the line, asking a muffled question. “I don’t know,” Castiel said, voice distant, presumably to Dean. “Here you go.”

“Gabriel?” Dean said, over Cas grumbling something.

“Damnit,” Gabriel said. “Listen up: Sam’s picking you up in twenty. I need a favor and you two are providing.”

“What? Me and Sam?”

“Yes, you two. And if you can shake my stubborn ass of a partner, it’d be even better.”

Dean didn’t say anything for a few seconds. “Everything all right over there?” he asked finally.

“There’s a dead demon on my kitchen table, what do you think?” Gabriel told him, exasperated. “Just get over here.”

And that if anything would light a fire under their tails, Gabriel thought grouchily, and ignored his phone as Dean called him back.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Half an hour later (bless Sam’s intuition for traffic cops), the four of them were gathered around the rapidly decomposing body. Gabriel hadn’t figured out how to make his message less sketchy, so he figured getting them to help him clean up the mess would help with the validity of the situation.

“Eugh,” Dean muttered. Sam prodded it in the arm and wrinkled his nose.

“So _how_ did this wind up on your table?” Castiel asked, looking disapproving. He’d apparently heard all about Gabriel’s request to keep him out of it—he and Dean had supposedly worked some sort of treaty out, which included total honesty on all things that weren’t strictly business-related. Which, on the one hand, was awesome, and on the other meant that Gabriel was gloomily certain his life was about to be ten times less private than before.

Gabriel scowled at him. “A contact of mine dropped by and dumped her off.”

“You have contacts capable of taking on demons?” Castiel said, disbelieving.

“What are we, chopped liver?” Sam demanded.

Dean, however, had picked up a glass and was sniffing it suspiciously. It was confusing, until Gabriel remembered it was the glass Crowley had been waving around earlier. But there was no way—

“You met with Crowley?” Dean demanded, looking deeply horrified.

“What?” Sam snapped. Dean shoved the glass in his direction and advanced on Gabriel.

“What the hell?” he snarled. “You been making deals or something?”

“Whoa, easy there tiger,” Gabriel shot back, standing his ground. “Back off so I can tell you about it.”

“ _You_ work with Crowley?” Sam had that angry betrayer-how-could-you accusatory gaze.

“Jesus,” Gabriel complained. “How the hell do you even know what his scotch smells like??”

“Would someone _please_ explain who Crowley is?” Castiel said, irritated.

“He’s the king of the crossroads,” Dean answered, backing off just a little. If Sam hadn’t started ominously edging forward Gabriel would have felt a little better. “He rules the demons involved in crossroads deals and handles the more interesting ones himself.”

“I can’t believe you _kissed_ him,” Sam interjected, inanely.

“Okay, calm the fuck down,” Gabriel snarled, losing his patience. “I didn’t make any deals with him. I _did_ run a con on him and subsequently won a bet, and that is the extent of any supernatural economic shenanigans I’ve pulled.” Dean and Sam still looked murderous and Castiel had that look of blank attention he got when his family interfered in office politics, so Gabriel plowed on.

“He showed up an hour ago and left the demon, gave me a warning to tell you—which is why you’re here—and then tootled off. _That’s it._ No deals, no murders, nothing, alright?”

“What was the warning?” Castiel asked as Sam and Dean traded looks, visibly closing off from the two Bureau agents. Gabriel would have thought it adorable if he hadn’t spent the past year trying his damndest to get Sam to stop treating him like a valuable-yet-untrusted ally.

“Apparently some demon engineered the shape-shifter attack,” Gabriel said. “The same guy opened the hellgate last year, and now he’s gunning to kick off the actual biblical Apocalypse.”

“Does the demon have a name?” Dean asked brusquely.

“Azazel.”

Sam flinched, oddly enough. “And Crowley just told you all this? Just friendly advice?” he said, voice raw.

“No, I owe him a favor,” Gabriel said, exasperated. “Can you two stop acting like we’re going to kill you and just tell us what we’re going to have to do to stop this?”

“You don’t need to get involved in this,” Dean said carefully. “I’m pretty sure Sam and I—”

“Dean Winchester, if you finish that sentence I will walk out on you right now, so help me,” Castiel said with quiet savagery.

Even Sam looked a little shocked, so Gabriel jumped in. “Excuse me, but _I’m_ the one owing Crowley a favor for this info,” he reminded them. “Like hell are you keeping me out of it.”

“And what’s to say you don’t turn around and kick us out of it?” Sam argued cruelly. “What’s to say you don’t just call in other people from the Bureau and we get quietly hushed up?”

“We won’t,” Castiel said flatly.

“Says you,” Sam said.

“Says me,” Gabriel threw in with a frown. “Considering our particular branch is usually where they dump the screw-ups and people too idealistic to hold with office politics, we don’t actually get a lot of cred within the organization.”

“Not yet, at any rate,” Castiel muttered.

Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Yes, there is always the possibility that Castiel can convince his brothers that they should take our division more seriously.”

“Really?” Dean said, sounding bemused. “Your brothers control the FBI?”

“Not officially,” Castiel said gruffly.

“Politics,” Gabriel offered.

“Politics,” Castiel agreed, shooting him a look of gratitude.

“And now that we’ve settled _that_ issue,” Gabriel breezed before Dean had a chance to interject, “can we please get this body out of my kitchen?”

* * * * * * * * * * * *

It took a bit more discussion than that, but by the time the demon had been safely smuggled to an empty warehouse and disposed of, all had agreed that working together was the best idea.

Sam got out with Gabriel as they dropped him off back at his apartment. “I’ve only got one more question,” he said slowly at the door, still a little wary.

“Yeah, shoot.”

“Why did you make a bet with Crowley?”

Gabriel grinned. “I don’t make deals.”

Sam raised his eyebrows. “What did you get out of it, then?”

“My job,” Gabriel said honestly (who says he had to disclose everything?) and added more jokingly “If I won, he had to help me infiltrate the FBI.”

Sam looked shocked. “What? Why?”

“I didn’t have a good resume. ‘Porn star’ is not exactly a respectable career, you know. But I had all the skills, and I thought I’d make the best contribution there,” Gabriel said cheerfully as Sam gaped at him.

“You’re joking!” Sam eyed him uncertainly. “…you’re not joking.”

Gabriel was grinning from ear to ear. It was always a good day when he could mess with Sam Winchester, and using the truth was even better. “Nope.”

“I—you know what, I don’t even want to know.”

Gabriel clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t be afraid, Sammy,” he said sagely. “You’re among friends.”

Sam just shook his head like Gabriel had gone insane and started after Dean and Castiel.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

A day later, he got a call from Dean.

“Is there a reason my computer is frozen on you having sex with two chicks and a dude?”

Gabriel cackled and hung up without answering.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SOOOOOOO AN ACTUAL PLOT SORT OF APPEARS. Amongst other things. Hopefully this hasn't strained suspension of disbelief or anything, AUs are so delicate these days.


	5. Castiel & Sam

“Look, Cas, we’re going to be all right,” Dean said one afternoon a few days later, with the air of perfect assurance Castiel loved nearly as much as he could be sure such convictions would get the hunter into trouble deep enough Castiel couldn’t help him with. “This whole Apocalypse thing—just watch, it’s going to turn out to be nothing.”

“Azazel has _planning_ , Dean,” Castiel argued. He was standing, frustrated, over the table full of information Dean had laid out—information he wasn’t mostly supposed to see, and certainly not to remember after this was over. “He _infiltrated our office_. He killed Sam’s girlfriend. How do you know it’s going to turn out all right?”

“Because we’re good at what we do,” Dean said simply, pulling Castiel forward into a comforting hold. Castiel went reluctantly, sad because it always seemed reluctant these days, but it was _Dean_ and Castiel’s _job_ , and it wasn’t really Castiel’s fault if he worried about his boyfriend, was it?

“Dean, I’m being serious,” he said, even if it was muffled from him being half pressed into Dean’s shoulder. He almost didn’t bother; it wasn’t like Dean really listened to him anyway, not about the supernatural stuff.

“And so am I,” Dean said, nothing but matter-of-fact while he rubbed Castiel’s back soothingly. “We called in help; we’re not facing this alone. There’s always risk with this sort of thing, you know that.”

Castiel sighed. “I hate it when you’re being reasonable,” he said, because he did, because it meant Dean wasn’t just trying to make Castiel feel better. It was weird because he wasn’t used to someone besides him and Gabriel and maybe Turner and Hendrickson who believed in this sort of shit and knew what actually happened out there, and he certainly wasn’t used to anyone in a position to reason with him about it.

“That’s the spirit,” Dean said cheerfully, and kissed his temple lightly. “Now, if I’m not mistaken, we have a little time before Gramps comes…”

“Mmm,” Castiel said as Dean’s hands started to slide lower. He couldn’t keep from smiling at Dean’s obvious anticipation. “Is that so?”

Dean smirked. “You want to see?”

Castiel pressed a sloppy kiss to the underside of Dean’s jaw and sucked at it. “Well, if you’ve got nothing better to do,” he mumbled, and started shoving Dean backwards to the table.

Dean went willingly enough, and in another few seconds Castiel had Dean up on a table, where he could easily slide his hands up under the reporter’s shirt as Dean pulled him closer in between his thighs via Castiel’s back jean pockets. Castiel sucked in a short breath as Dean got a good handful and squeezed.

“You definitely have the “ass” in Cas,” Dean said, voice a little rough.

Castiel tweaked a nipple. “And you love it.”

Dean twined a hand in Castiel’s hair. “No shit, it’s awesome—”

The doorbell rang.

“Fuck,” Castiel said. “I swear, this always happens.”

“At least the door is closed?” Dean sighed and knocked his forehead against Castiel’s. “Dear old Grandfather Henry.”

Castiel straightened Dean’s shirt as he withdrew, Dean fingercombing Castiel’s hair into some modicum of flatness. The doorbell rang again.

“Coming!” Dean yelled.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

“Grandfather Henry” of the Winchester side was probably the least-threatening person Castiel had ever met.

“ _This_ is one of the highest ranking members of the Men of Letters?” he muttered to Gabriel in the kitchen while Sam and Dean laughed over some joke Henry had made in the living room.

Gabriel added a healthy slug of vodka to his glass of orange juice and took a pull straight from the bottle. “Yes,” he said bluntly. “He is also infinitely scarier than anyone you will ever meet.”

Castiel grunted and popped the caps off of a couple beers.  “Is that why you haven’t left the kitchen since he arrived?”

“Is that why you’re running nonsense errands in the kitchen right now?” Gabriel sniped back.

Castiel scowled. “They’re not really talking about anything right now,” he said. “It didn’t seem necessary that I be present for the exchange of family gossip.”

“ _What_ family gossip?” Gabriel grumbled. “They’re the only ones left.”

“Grandfather Henry never feels complete unless he disparages the Campbells to us at least once during his visit,” Sam said, walking in. He leaned against the doorjamb. “You guys gonna come out of there? We haven’t even introduced you, Gabe.”

“Yeah, just grabbing more beers,” Castiel said helpfully, hoisting the four of them as proof. Gabriel glowered at him, but trooped out after Castiel quietly enough.

Grandfather Henry was sitting easily in one of the armchairs, facing the couch. Dean had rearranged the furniture so it wasn’t grouped around the television earlier that morning, which meant that Castiel and Gabriel could cram with Dean on the couch while Sam sat in the other chair.

“Grandfather? This is Gabriel, Gabriel Milton. He’s with the FBI like Cas,” Sam said, waving to Gabriel.

“My partner, actually,” Castiel added. The show of possession might stave off whatever showdown Gabriel was worried about.

Henry, when he caught sight of Gabriel, raised his eyebrows and whistled. “Well you boys certainly know how to pick ‘em,” he said. “Haven’t heard about you in a while, kid. You’ve certainly come a long way.”

“You’ve gotten old,” Gabriel said cheerfully, though Castiel noticed his grin was sharper than usual.

Henry snorted. “True enough,” he said amiably. “Now. I’m assuming you’re caught up with what we know?”

“We know diddly,” Dean said, casually throwing an arm around Castiel. “We’ve got a busted hellgate in the neighborhood and monsters hacking databases and a warning from the King of the Crossroads himself.”

Henry nodded. “Ah, yes. Azazel’s apocalypse.”

“Is there anything in the bunker about it?” Sam asked.

_What bunker?_ Castiel mouthed to Dean, who shook his head as Henry said “Besides some stolen Torahs, thirty different versions of the Bible, a couple Qu’rans and a lot of unpublished testaments? Too much for us to crunch through fast. It takes time to read through them all and get a list of comparisons, but basically a whole hell of a lot of different things can be going down right now.”

“Well, like what?” Dean asked.

“Well,” Henry said slowly, leaning back and looking thoughtful, “we think he’s breaking… seals? That’s the best translation we can get.”

“Seals?” Castiel said, rifling through his old coursework in his head. “You mean like the seven seals to break Lucifer free?”

“Exactly,” Henry said excitedly. “Except instead of seven, there are sixty-six. Out of over six hundred.”

There was a beat of silence. “Six _hundred_?” Sam repeated, disbelieving.

“Shit,” Dean muttered.

“Well, hang up now,” Henry said mildly. “See, the thing is the first seal is set. So’s the last.”

“I remember that,” Castiel remarked. “It had something to do with Lilith, the first demon.”

Grandfather Henry gave him a shrewd look. “Yes,” he said thoughtfully, “that is our current theory about the last seal. She has to die on Lucifer’s tomb or something.”

“That shouldn’t be too hard,” Dean said slowly. “As long as we prevent the last one from happening, we can stall the whole thing.”

“But what about the other sixty-five?” Sam asked skeptically. “I mean, these aren’t things like ‘let fifty butterflies loose’ or anything, this is gonna be major demon mojo. That means sex, drugs, and death.”

“Probably a little rock ‘n roll, too,” Gabriel muttered.

“Yes,” Henry said. “And, of course, there is the matter as to whether or not Azazel has actually completed the first seal properly.”

Sam frowned. “How so?”

Henry shrugged his ancient shoulders. “We don’t know. It’s about a Righteous Man spilling blood in Hell, so obviously we can’t point you to a crime scene, but the lore we do have on it—a Righteous Man, that is—is about how absolutely  rare that person is. There aren’t that many people who fit the bill, it seems.”

“And… what,” Gabriel said skeptically, obviously unable to keep quiet for much longer. “You just have a registry of possible candidates for the position?”

Henry frowned at him. “Well… no,” he admitted. “But we do have a couple of guesses.”

Castiel found this entirely unconvincing. “You have guesses.”

Grandfather Henry pointed the beer at him. “ _Good_ guesses. Based off of what we know of demons and angels and everything else.”

“Whoa, hold up,” Dean interrupted, as Sam exclaimed “ _Angels?_ The _angels_ are getting involved?”

“I’m sorry, what?” Castiel said as politely as he could manage.

“Angels exist,” Gabriel told him. “They’re also generally invisible, and complete dicks as far as we know.”

Grandfather Henry snorted. “They certainly aren’t getting involved,” he said, “at least, not as far as we can tell. Granted, no one’s seen any of them in centuries. And trust me, we would know.”

“Oh, you would know,” Castiel said, failing at keeping the caustic edge out of his voice. He hated being completely out of his depth like this, especially when it was clear that _everyone in the room_ knew more about the situation than he did.

Dean hooked a foot around his ankle and tugged him closer, but didn’t say anything beyond a concerned look. Castiel glared back at him. Dean rolled his eyes ludicrously, as though he’d had to deal with this a lot in the past; absurdly, it made Castiel feel better.

“Could you two _get_ any more obvious?” Gabriel complained.

Henry was watching them with raised eyebrows, but he didn’t say anything. He cleared his throat. “Er, yes. We have one of the widest networks for this sort of thing, and nothing’s popped up on the radar.”

“So what are the guesses?” Sam asked, as though guesswork was totally plausible for these sorts of things.

“I know you guys are the head of the game,” Gabriel said with skepticism that Castiel totally applauded, “but _guesses?_ Really?”

“We’ve gone off of less,” all three Winchesters said simultaneously.

“It’s like our family motto,” Sam said dryly.

“It should _be_ our motto,” Grandfather Henry said with humor.

“What’s our motto again?” Dean wanted to know. “‘I am ready’?”

“Something like that,” Sam said. “In… French?”

“Yeah,” Henry said. “That one emerged in the mid thirteenth century. ‘ _Je suis prest_ ’.”

“Oh look,” Gabriel said to Castiel. “They have multiple family mottos.”

“We’ve been in the game for a long time, Gabriel,” Henry said, brief amusement gone. “Which I was just getting to, as it were.”

“The guesses,” Gabriel said solemnly. Henry shot him a look before nodding.

“The guesses, yes. From what we know of these sorts of things—demon sensibilities and angelic demands and so forth—only the best would do for this. When you get Biblical, you can’t really do sloppy unless God thinks it’s funny; and since God hasn’t been heard from literally in millennia from either end, you can guess the rules are absolutely in place and there isn’t any leeway in this sort of thing.”

“I’m still getting over God being real,” Dean muttered to Castiel. “We’ve been doing just fine without him.”

“I think that was the point,” Castiel told him, interested in what Dean’s grandfather was saying.

“One essential piece of information is about angels and their need for vessels,” Henry went on, ignoring Dean and Castiel’s exchange completely. Castiel chastised himself for his rudeness before remembering Dean started it. “An angel can’t walk the earth without being housed in a human being who has given their full consent to the situation.”

“Like demonic possession, except the person has to say yes,” Sam clarified. “Angel 101.”

“And the angels in this case—the ones who really matter—are of course Lucifer, who does not operate by demon rules though he created them, and Michael, the righteous eldest brother who originally threw Lucifer out on God’s say-so.”

“And they’ll need vessels,” Gabriel concluded.

“They’ll need the _perfect_ vessels,” Grandfather Henry corrected gravely.

“Which means what?” Castiel asked bluntly. Could they get to the point?

“This is the guesswork,” Sam guessed.

“Accurate prediction,” Henry said. “They need vessels who best exemplify two warring brothers.”

“Like Cain and Abel?” Gabriel said, confused. Castiel felt Dean stiffen beside him.

“No way,” Sam breathed, looking horrified.

“Really?” Dean asked, shock painting his face. Henry nodded. “Oh, shit. Oh shit.”

“What?” Castiel demanded, worry kicking into high gear. “Why is this bad?”

“It’s because they’re legacies,” Gabriel said.

“You keep saying that,” Castiel told him irritably. “I’m starting to think you don’t actually know what that means.”

“No, he’s right,” Grandfather Henry said. “The Winchesters have always been involved in the Men of Letters, and even before that they were intrinsically wound up in the supernatural. Sam and Dean are the product of a history spanning the entirety of human existence, if one considers the history told in the Books a starting point.”

“I don’t follow,” Castiel said, absolutely at a loss.

“We uh,” Sam said, hesitating a little. “We Winchesters can trace our history back to Cain. We’re direct descendants if our records are correct.”

“And if they’re looking for two brothers to be vessels…” Dean shrugged. “Well, hold on a sec. Did we ever confirm the vessel lineage chart?”

“Obviously not, how would they confirm it Dean?” Sam snapped.

“Whoa dude, chill,” Dean said, leaning back a little. “Just asking, you know?”

“Okay, so you two are the descendants of the human brothers who fight each other,” Gabriel said as Sam started to puff up like an angry cat. “Which means you two are good candidates for being angel vessels for the two main contenders, yes?”

“An accurate summation,” Henry said.

“Well what’s to say it can’t be some other pair of brothers?” Gabriel asked reasonably. “Abel and Cain were millennia ago. They’ve got to have other descendants.”

Grandfather Henry shrugged. “Presumably,” he said and made a face. “But Sam and Dean here have impressive pedigrees beyond the legacy of Cain.”

“The Campbells,” Castiel inferred.

“No way,” Dean said. “They count as pedigree?”

Henry scowled. “They _are_ the most effective of the hunter clans,” he said, clearly unhappy about it. “In the Western world, at any rate. Inclined to excessive violence, certainly, but they get the job done.”

Sam and Dean both grinned at each other over some sort of private joke.

“Wow, special,” Gabriel commented. “Congratulations on being born. _How_ does this relate to seals?”

“Well, from some accounts of angelic prophecy—which we hold to be less corrupted than human accounts—the righteous man who spills blood in hell is also to eventually be brought out to act as the vessel for Michael. Which means that if it was one of these two, they’d have died and been brought back for this thing.”

“Oh,” Castiel said blankly. This was getting a little convoluted.

“How do we know there wasn’t another righteous dude elsewhere?” Dean wanted to know. “I mean, all evidence aside, we’re really not _that_ special.”

“Well, we’ve also had people scanning for random resurrections,” Henry said offhandedly. “No dice, though.”

Castiel cleared his throat, doing his best to keep a reign on his temper. “So Dean and Sam are... ideal angel vessels, one of whom was supposed to go to hell  and then host Michael and Lucifer if this Apocalypse is supposed to… proceed correctly.”

“When you put it like that it really does sound like you’ve been keeping secrets from him,” Gabriel told Dean apologetically.

“Secret society secrets,” Sam said instantly, in tandem with Henry’s “I should _hope_ so!”

Gabriel waved a hand at that and Dean’s confused look. “Yeah, but, _major_ secrets. Like ‘oh by the way I am a prince in the supernatural world and therefor a major political target’ sort of secrets.”

“Dude, what the hell,” Dean snapped at him, tensing up. “You think I _knew_ about all of this?”

“You’re a fine one to speak of keeping identities secret,” Henry said coolly to Gabriel.

“I’m offering my _help_ ,” Gabriel growled back.

Sam was watching him like a hawk. “What?” he asked sharply. “Is there something we don’t know about him?”

“I’d imagine there’s a lot you don’t know about me,” Gabriel snarked back. Castiel knew his partner’s back-to-the-wall tone well enough to tell that Gabriel was definitely not happy about this line of conversation.

“Enough,” Castiel said flatly, stopping Sam with his mouth open. He turned to Henry and jerked a thumb at Gabriel. “Is he going to betray us?”

Grandfather Henry gave him a _look_. “I wouldn’t think so,” he said grudgingly.

“Fine then,” Castiel said, fed up. “Sam, you and Gabriel can talk about how you’re feeling betrayed over this later. Dean, you and I _will_ have words after this. Now, right _now_ , I would like to know how we’re going to stop Azazel from trying to complete his fucked up Apocalypse.”

Henry nodded decisively. “I like him, Dean,” he said approvingly.

“With all due respect sir,” Castiel said baldly, only slightly mollified, “please stow it and get back on topic.”

* * * * * * * * * * * *

It just _had_ to be Azazel.

The rest of the meeting passed by in a sort of haze. Not that Sam wasn’t paying attention, it was too important not to, but the information of the seals currently estimated to have been broken (twenty-two, the most recent being something involving animals killing humans or vice versa or something in St. Louis) and the next seal they estimated to fall (the desecration of a truly holy site) was simply overshadowed by the realization that the fucking demon who had killed Jessica and prompted him into a tailspin last year was the one behind the whole thing. It was infuriating.

And it was a second chance. Sam had gone cold at the thought of finally getting some proper revenge.

“Hello,” Gabriel said, waving a hand in front of his face. From his tone it was clear he’d been trying to get Sam’s attention for a while; the fact that Dean and Castiel were quietly arguing in the kitchen and Grandfather Henry was no longer in sight leant credibility to that assessment. “Earth to Mooseman!”

“Stop it,” Sam said irritably, glaring at him. Gabriel, the friend who was apparently lying about something big. Sam knew there was a reason he shouldn’t have trusted the guy. Making deals with Crowley had been the first sign; what’s to say the agent wasn’t secretly batting for some third team bent on screwing the lot of them over as soon as possible?

“You’ve got your ‘you lied to me I will murder everything you love’ face on. Can you blame me for being a bit twitchy about it?”

“It’s not my fault you _actually did_ ,” Sam growled at him.

Gabriel raised an eyebrow at that. “What, are you really going to murder everything I love now? Hate to break it to you, but that definitely includes your asshole of a brother and you. You gonna go out in a blaze of glory? Blow the whole building up?”

“Oh stop it,” Sam said, disgusted. “Seriously, why are you even still here?”

“Dude, you have _got_ to learn to relax a little,” Gabriel said flatly. “Remember how I was telling Dean about how he was keeping major identity secrets secret when people, read Castiel, were clearly in the need to know? Well that’s not how it is between us, so you can be grateful I’m not going to start whining your ear off about how all along you’ve been some sort of angel condom for one of the two big bads themselves.”

Sam gaped at him. “Oh,” he said when he was able to form coherent words. “Oh, this is about _me_ now? What the _hell_ , Gabriel? You’re the one who’s apparently so far deep in this business _my grandfather_ knows who you are!”

“Yeah, a lot of people know who I am.” Gabriel folded his arms and glared right back. “What do you want me to say? That I shouldn’t’ve kept secrets when by all accounts you were _more_ likely to murder me before I tried to get a word in edgewise than now, when you’re actually letting me run my mouth off?”

Sam gritted his teeth. “Say what you’re going to say,” he said tightly. “Then we’ll see if you’re still walking out that door in one piece.”

“Samuel Winchester, that man is a _guest,_ ” Grandfather Henry said from somewhere behind him firmly in reprimand before heading for the kitchen with Dean and Castiel. “Behave yourself!”

“Oh, so you are, you know, human.”

“Fuck you,” Gabriel said coldly. “I am a fucking _wizard_ , thank you very much, and most definitely human.”

“Is life around here always so dramatic?” Sam heard Grandfather Henry ask in the kitchen as Sam just sort of stared blankly at Gabriel.

“Oh,” Sam said.

“‘Oh’ is right, asshat,” Gabriel said irritably, but he was relaxing, probably because Sam wasn’t being overtly threatening anymore now that he was confusedly trying to fit the Men of Letters’s vague descriptions of wizardly people, Gandalf the Gray/White, and Gabriel into one sort of thing.

“Wait, seriously?” Sam said.

Gabriel rolled his eyes and snapped his fingers. Two beers appeared in front of them on the coffee table.

“HEY!” Dean yelled from the kitchen.

“Congratulations,” Gabriel said, taking one and toasting ironically. “I am a bona fide wizardly asshole.”

“You… can snap things up.”

“No, I do magic by snapping my fingers,” Gabriel corrected and took a drink of his beer. “And I can only snap things up if I know where they are already.”

“What, is it different from other people?” Sam asked, sidetracked beside himself.

“I knew this wizard who could only do magic by sneezing,” Grandfather offered, breezing back into the room. “She was always so horrified by how unseemly it was. I got her a set of handkerchiefs for her birthday one year and she was so mad she didn’t talk to me for nearly two years.”

“Yeah,” Gabriel said. “That’s my great aunt Hester.”

“A lovely woman,” Grandfather Henry said gallantly.

“So what’s the news?” Dean said, exiting the kitchen in favor of the couch. Castiel came in just behind him, and clearly unhappy—he had that ‘I am extremely upset and you are not getting any from me ever again Dean Winchester’ look on his face.

“Mister Milton is a wizard and his great aunt is a former acquaintance of mine,” Grandfather said cheerily.

“Oh, whoa,” Dean said, impressed. “So you’re like…” At a loss for words, he twiddled his fingers by his face. “Gandalf and shit?”

Gabriel rolled his eyes. “I prefer to think like Harry Dresden, but yeah,” he said. “I mean, I’m still human.”

“Oh, cool,” Dean said, because Dean was totally content with the short explanations and totally missed the cool part every time like _fucking magic_ _that wasn’t witchcraft_. “I assume that’s where our beers went?”

“It is delicious,” Gabriel said, tipping the bottle in Dean’s direction.

Castiel rubbed his face with both hands and mumbled something under his breath. Dean kicked him. “Hey, it’s cool,” he said gruffly. “Times like this just bring up all the sketchy stuff so we can be suspicious of each other and get divided amongst ourselves and shit.”

Castiel looked at him despairingly. “You and your brother are in line to be possessed by two alien, celestial beings of divine retribution, Gabriel can actually poof things into magic shit that can trick the king of demons, your grandfather is like the Grand Master of the supernatural underworld, and I am literally _the only person who had no idea about any of this_. How is this _not_ designed to cause conflict?”

Dean frowned. “Well see, that’s the point. This is where you like, take a leap of faith and join us on the crazy pirate ship of ‘shit’s going down but we’ll be damned if it goes down on us.’”

Castiel frowned right back at him. “Was that supposed to be sexual?”

“OKAY,” Sam said loudly. “ _Moving on._ ”

Grandfather Henry coughed into his hand. “They never keep me informed of _this_ ,” he said to Gabriel, vaguely indicating Dean and Castiel.

“It’s titillating, isn’t it?” Gabriel asked, dead serious. “Just wait until they’ve made up. The eyesex is enough to make you feel voyeuristic.”

“Shut up,” Dean and Castiel said simultaneously.

“Moving on,” Grandfather Henry said smoothly, “there’s a list of holy sites we can go through. I’ve got a few, and some of the acolytes were working on others when I left so it’s not complete…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this only took two weeks and half a bottle of tequila


	6. All Together Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ALL TOGETHER NOW

_wat can I say? he has issues u need to grovel to get him to talk again_

Dean scowled at his phone. _jackass I can’t just get on my knees and beg him to take me back or w/e_ , he texted sarcastically in response.

 _well its not like youve cheated on him or anything_ Gabriel answered pragmatically.  _he's just angry with u_ _  
_

_fucking brownie points oh goodie_

_lol @ ur old fashioned vocab_

_bitch_ , Dean sent sourly.

_hey, u asked me for help in the first place. don’t whine_

“You know Gabriel isn’t actually some kick-ass fantasy wizard,” Sam said, just the faintest tone of pure Sammy sass in the rebuke. “He’s not going to poof your and Cas’s relationship back to normal.”

“We never had a normal,” Dean growled. “We sort of had secrets and then we had all the secrets, and now there isn’t anything but all these shitty revelations and one of them is that we are too _pedigreed_ to be anything more than angel bait, which means that anyone with sense is going to stay the hell away.”

“Are you saying Cas has sense? Come on, he loves you. You’ll be fine.” Sam nodded to the _Welcome to Santa Fe_ sign about a mile up, switching gears. “You want to stop for a meal?”

“Do you think there’s somewhere with pie?” _r u guys hungry?_

“Probably.”

“Well, I need something good out of this day.” Buzz, _is there pie?_ “Yeah, they’re down.”

* * * * * * * * * * * *

After a bit of finagling, Dean had gotten Grandfather Henry to express ship a copy of the data aggregators the Men of Letters used out to their area and had Sam track down nation-wide demonic omens—lightning storms, temperature fluctuations, etc. In cross-referencing the spots with a map, the site of Chimayo had come up, showing unusual concentration.

“Are you sure it’s holy?” Dean had asked seriously, squinting at the sheet of information Sam had put together. “The cross is the fucking crucifix of Our Lord of ‘Esquipulas.’ The fuck is ‘Esquipulas?’”

“The Guatemalan version of Jesus, jackass. Try to _pretend_ to be educated here,” Gabriel had said.

“Does it matter what sort of crucifix some priest dug up?” Sam wanted to know. “The point is, this place has hundreds of miracle stories and a whole hell of a lot of pilgrims, et cetera et cetera. It’s prime holy site material.”

“Not to mention demonic omens surround the place,” Castiel had growled, and that was that.

So now they were en route to el Santuario de Chimayo, outside of Santa Fe in godforsaken New Mexico. They’d hit the plateaus about midmorning and had been climbing in elevation since then, and now they had entered the city proper.

The downtown was charmingly done in adobe and something Sam called “Frontier” style, all small streets and tourist-priced, chicly quaint shops. “Christ,” Dean muttered as they rumbled down a street. He could see Castiel in Gabriel’s Corvette in his rearview mirror, about two cars behind them. “Is this place soulless or what?”

“A lot of artists live here,” Sam said in his please-Dean-stop-being-an-idiot voice. “They’ve got more cosmopolitan tastes.”

“And that extends to the adobe?”

“Dude, it’s historical.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Dean grumbled. “Do they have a place with food that won’t cost much?”

Sam made a face. “What, you don’t want one of the places here?”

“All I see are leather shops and snobby rich white people.” Dean turned off the main street and found himself in a tangle of residential blocks that all looked like they should only have a single lane, not the two the lines on the asphalt indicated. “Shit.”

“Do you even know where you’re going?” Sam asked. Dean checked the new text from Gabriel— _is there a plan or r u lost—_ and had to jerk the wheel sharply as a guy came around a hairpin turn and wound up to close.

“That’s it,” Sam said, and jerked the phone out of his hand. “I’ll tell Gabriel you’re lost.”

“Fuck you,” Dean growled, and made a turn onto a wider, non-residential street. “Um.”

“If you turn around we can get back into town,” Sam offered as they drove into the industrial quarter of the city.

“Dude, I—you know what, look, there’s a dude with a taco cart. Let’s get tacos.”

“Dean,” Sam said, exasperated, as Dean pulled into the parking lot. The taco truck was a little trailer mounted on a cement square next to a mechanic’s garage, manned by numerous Latino guys in blue coveralls. A couple stood next to the taco cart, all chatting to each other over something in Spanish.

Castiel pulled up next to them—he and Gabriel had switched off driving at the last stop, though Dean couldn’t fathom Gabriel letting Castiel behind the wheel of his sweet-ass car—and parked, the two of them clambering out with the stiffness only long car rides could produce.

“What’s up?” Gabriel asked immediately. “Tacos? Man, I love tacos. Is this place legit?”

“God knows,” Sam said. “Dean panicked.”

“Dude, shut it,” Dean hissed, elbowing him.

“Those men look like they’re enjoying it,” Castiel said calmly. “It should be adequate.”

“No pie, probably,” Gabriel said sadly.

“Yeah, but they’ve got soda,” Dean said, nodding to one of the men.

The tacos, once ordered, were actually very delicious, and at a dollar a piece they were an excellent bargain. For Sam and Castiel, really, who had three each. Dean and Gabriel accounted for something like fourteen between the two of them.

“So get this,” Sam said as they stood around their cars, Gabriel licking the last of the taco juice off his fingers. “We’re somewhere about here. Chimayo is about half an hour thataways. I say we get in, check it out, see if anything’s happened. If there’ve been omens for a couple days it means they’re waiting for something; probably there’s some sort specific day they’ve got to do it on. Maybe a holy day?”

Castiel hummed adorably. “There’s the feast day of the Lord Esquipulas coming up,” he said. “It’s on Tuesday. It’s the feast day of the crucifix the priest found?”

“Sure, all right,” Dean said. “It’s Sunday now, so we go in, check it out as inconspicuously as possible, figure out what to do.”

Gabriel rubbed his hands together. “Excellent,” he said, clapping Castiel on the shoulder. “That means you and me, buddy.”

Dean frowned. “What?” he said. “Why?”

“The demons there are going to recognize you right off the bat,” Gabriel reasoned. “Or we should at least figure it like that. I say Cas and I go in as tourists and scope the place. You two should come in case things are actually happening when we get there, but definitely not to ask questions.”

“Smart,” Sam said approvingly.

Dean grumbled under his breath. “All right,” he said unhappily.

“Do you have any objections?” Cas asked, looking like he would love nothing more than Dean voicing one.

“Yeah, but they don’t matter,” Dean said, not liking the challenge. “Let’s just get this thing done, all right?”

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Chimayo proved to be a dusty collection of adobe and clapboard buildings grouped around a single asphalt road, bordered with and branching off into gravel. It was all prettily surrounded by bits of greenery and actually, okay, it was actually a really nice place in one of those “we’re not trying to be a tourist trap we just are” sort of way. Dean felt like if he hadn’t been raised to eye everything remotely cult-like and religious with an air of skepticism and superior knowledge he might appreciate the place more in the way it obviously intended to be.

And yes, the camera Gabriel had hidden in his hat was totally providing live feed to the Corvette, parked nearly a mile and a half away from the site. Technology was _awesome_.

“Jesus,” Dean said after about an hour of watching Gabriel and Castiel’s route through the site and the packed humanity there for whatever reason, shivering with the chill. “Is everyone and their mother here to see the dirt pit?”

“Dude, I don’t do religion,” Sam said, and went back to creepily touching their dad’s demon killing knife.

Dean sighed. At least Gabriel was getting some nice views of Cas’s ass in the camera’s field of view.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

“Well,” Gabriel said to Castiel in undertone as another pilgrim bumbled past, mumbling prayers, “at least we know it’s a place of faith.”

“Makes it a better target,” Castiel muttered back. “Any demonic activity?”

Gabriel paused by one of the mini shrines—this seemed to be to Mary—and closed his eyes, feeling around for anything crazy. “Nope,” he said after a minute of apparent prayer. “Nothing nearby, at least. It feels all weird from so much faith magic.”

“How far do your senses extend anyway?” Castiel asked quietly, dropping some coins into a collection box.

“It’s less if it’s more densely populated. Can’t deal with too many impressions all at once, you know?” Gabriel kept his patient cheerfulness as they shuffled along with the crowd to the pit. “The farthest I’ve managed was about ten miles, and that was on a mountain.”

“A mountain?” Castiel scrupulously studied the brochures in his hands. “Is there a story behind that?”

Gabriel pointed at something random beneath a picture of a bright-eyed student photo. “No, unless you want to hear about Hindu goddesses in the Catskills.”

“What?”

“Exactly.”

It took them just as long as Gabriel expected—which was to say, fucking forever—to stop by the pit the magical crucifix had been found in, grab some dirt, and vamoose right on back out, past hundreds of pictures of people who had been cured and all sorts of crutches and baby shoes and so on. Frankly, it was all a little creepy.

The buildings out back didn’t really show much, either, though Gabriel sprung for a couple of popsicles at the gift shop. He thought he felt something when they weren’t milling around with the hordes, but nothing spectacular. Castiel scowled when he reported.

“I think we’ve learned as much as we can here,” he said in undertone as the licked their popsicles by a planter.

Gabriel slurped at his peach-flavored treat and thoughtfully contemplated Castiel’s choice in strawberry. His partner was meticulous in taking it apart; Gabriel wondered if that was part of the reason Dean was so fussed about the season of fighting they’d been going through. If Castiel wasn’t so uprightly devoted the wizard might have set about getting the guy to teach him his tricks.

“I’d have to agree,” he said, before a pause could become too evident. “I mean, it’s not like any demons are going to pop out and surprise us when it’s so busy.”

“Ohhhh,” breathed someone from behind. “But wouldn’t that be a surprise?”

* * * * * * * * * * * *

“Shit,” Dean said suddenly.

“What?” Sam looked up from his notes; Dean sounded serious.

“Shit,” Gabriel’s voice echoed, tinny though the speakers. Sam caught a glimpse of a face twisted in the rictus of a grin before the screaming started and the feed fuzzed with gray static. The engine roared as Dean manhandled the gearstick and pulled them out of parking to haul ass down the highway.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

“I swear,” Gabriel heard Castiel growl from the other side of the street, “this is the fifth time I’ve been thrown around telekinetically by fucking demons.”

“Yeah?” Gabriel gasped out as the perky blonde stalked over to him. She kicked him in the side, hard. “ _Oof_.”

“Should’ve guessed some boys like you would drop by,” the girl purred, and jerked Gabriel up to face her by his hair. He snarled and swung at her as she tsked at him.

Castiel shot at her; Gabriel should’ve known the guy would’ve brought a gun to a magic show. Nevertheless, she let go in shock; he took advantage of the opportunity and rolled in the opposite direction.

“Oh sweetie, you’re just a proper little attention whore, aren’t you?” the demon crooned, focused firmly on Castiel. Gabriel belted out the exorcism in record time, managing it in something like four seconds; she screamed at him, and disappeared in a cloud of black smoke.

“Impressive,” Castiel complimented briefly.

“Thanks,” Gabriel croaked. “I’ve been practicing.”

Someone clapped. It was slow and menacing, as befitted the proper villain of the piece. The two FBI agents looked towards it and saw a man, about fifty or so years in age and with bright yellow eyes, smirking.

“I really do have to congratulate you boys,” he said cheerfully. Gabriel opened his mouth, fully prepared to do an encore, but the demon’s eyes flashed yellow and he twitched some fingers and Gabriel started choking on air. “I don’t know how you got in, but I can assure you I know how you’ll be getting out.”

Castiel went flying backwards. Either he’d turned the gun on the demon, or Azazel was just a sadistic bastard. Gabriel would put money on the sadism, personally.

“Come on now, stop that,” Azazel chided, and stomped on the hand Gabriel was sketching the banishing sigil with. He scraped it around on the gravel, and fucking hell, _ow_. “We’re all friends here, aren’t we?”

It seemed Castiel hadn’t let go of his weapon, because it rang out sharply as Gabriel hissed with what little breath he had in pain. Azazel jerked and spun on Gabriel’s partner, stalking across the street with the clear intent to rip the guy to pieces. True to form, this was when Sam and Dean made their entrance, slamming into him with the roar of zippy sportyness and spraying gravel. The demon shrieked and flew through the air; Gabriel gasped in a breath. Doors opened and Gabriel managed to work through the grinding pain in his hand to pull his head off the ground. He got a good look at Dean, who was racing over to check on him.

“Shit dude, what happened to your crazy-ass wizard powers?” Dean demanded, manhandling him in the name of medicine.

“Dude,” Gabriel growled. “Why do you think my hand’s not fucking broken?”

“Your hand? But—oh.” The hunter watched the skin knit together with raised eyebrows. “Damn, that is impressive.”

“Dean! You okay?” Sam yelled.

“Yeah, how’s Cas?” Dean hollered back, over his shoulder.

“I’m afraid he’s going to have a bit of a hangover when he wakes up,” someone snarled behind them. Gabriel saw Dean turn and get smashed over the head with a rock before he felt a similarly sharp impact and everything went black.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

“Shit,” Sam said, starting forward after Azazel as he grabbed Dean and Gabriel and darted out of sight. He made it about five feet before some noise made him spin back around just in time to notice a third demon as it barreled into him, flailing and in general attempting to bash his head into the ground. Sam growled, pulled a cheap-shit wrestling move he’d blackmailed Cousin Gwen into teaching him, and stabbed it with dad’s demon knife.

“Nice moves,” Castiel grumbled. If his face wasn’t still mashed into the ground, Sam might’ve believed him.

“That’s what all the girls say,” he quipped, scanning the area nearest them before looking back in the direction Azazel had taken off in. There wasn’t anything around.

“Where’s Dean?” Castiel managed. He’d pulled himself mostly upright and was gingerly feeling at the bits of gravel embedded in his skin. Most of it crumbled off as Sam watched; there wasn’t as much blood as there could have been.

“Hang on,” Sam said, and turned the Corvette off, pulling the keys out of the ignition to stop the annoying alert reminding him and the rest of the world they were still there. “Azazel took him and Gabriel and hauled ass out of here.”

“Is there anyone still on the site?” Sam had no idea how, but Castiel was up and moving, as alert as he’d been when he and Gabriel had left the car two hours ago.

“Doesn’t much look like it. You notice anyone?”

Castiel shook his head mutely, working his piece to check how many rounds he had left. He reloaded with precise clicks. “I’m assuming the most likely place they’d be is at the pit of sand. It’s the holy center of this site.”

“Go in, smash them all to pieces, go out?” Sam suggested, falling in next to the agent as he headed unerringly towards the shrine.

“Sounds good,” Castiel said calmly. “Also, I took the liberty of carving devil’s traps into the bullets. If there are any still in Azazel, it will prevent him from changing bodies.”

It was right about then that three black-eyed people emerged from the gift shop and headed straight for them. Sam looked to the side quickly and saw another five, all homing in on them with far too much eagerness.

“I,” Castiel said with grave frustration, “do _not_ have time for this.”

“A day in the life of a demon hunter,” Sam said.

“If Dean gets killed while we’re dealing with these, I’m stealing your knife and becoming a vigilante,” Castiel told him, already swinging.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Things hurt.

“This doesn’t feel right,” Gabriel heard from a distance. He could feel the words shaping themselves, too sharp on his lips, but had absolutely no control over the cadence or tone. His skin itched, and he felt his shoulders roll impatiently, uneasily.

“Well it’s not like you have to be in there for very long now, do you?” Azazel swam into view, a stretched-out thing of unhealthy complexion and jaundiced eyes. Gabriel shouted in surprise at how close it was. Or rather, he tried, but the noise didn’t emerge and the impulse to leap away wasn’t met.

He became aware he was bouncing on the balls of his feet. His neck cracked, once to the right and once to the left. Gabriel wasn’t causing any of it, but his body couldn’t seem to keep still.

 _Demonic possession,_ he realized, and it was like a bucket of ice water had just tipped onto his head. He heard his laugh, nasty and far too satisfied with itself as the demon enjoyed his dismay.

“Poor widdle wizard doesn’t like what’s happening to him,” it crooned to Azazel. “I wonder. Do you think I can do magic with it?”

“Eugh,” Dean said. Gabriel’s eyes turned in his direction, and his face, pale and bloodied, imprinted sharply on his vision. “What the hell’s wrong with you guys? Can’t you find some nice dead bodies to possess or something? I always heard it was more fun to be the zombie, jeez.”

Azazel laughed, eerie in how entirely personable it was. “Come on Dean-o, can’t you let us have a little fun?”

“What?” Dean said, all innocence. “If I didn’t know you, you’d be doing this yourself.”

Gabriel almost thought he heard a shriek floating on the breeze.

Azazel hissed. “Yes. Clever of your little boytoy, whatever it was he did. Still, it’s not as though I can’t get things done.” There was a loud crack; Gabriel saw Dean’s head lolling, lip split and swelling. He almost had to laugh at the demon’s stupidity; angry or not, Castiel was _not_ going to tolerate Dean getting slapped around by some two-bit demonic hack.

The demon wearing him clucked. “This one’s got a mouth on him,” it told Azazel, grinning in such a way that the pull of the skin on Gabriel’s face felt extremely unnatural.

Azazel grabbed Dean by his hair—quite a feat, that—and hauled him viciously up to look at Gabriel.

“Now listen here, Winchester,” the demon said quite calmly. “We’re going to review some of the ways of desecrating a holy spot. And your friend here—Gabriel, is it?—Gabriel, since he doesn’t have an anti-possession tattoo anymore, is going to help us.”

Dean’s eyes flickered to Gabriel’s briefly, but they must’ve been creepily black because he looked away after the barest of seconds.

“Now there’s a whole lot of hooey about sex and drunkenness and so on,” Azazel said cheerfully, and Gabriel could feel the demon in his skin’s excitement at what it was about to do; and he heard it name the particular form Azazel had decided would be best, and the demon’s plan on how exactly to fulfill it; and for the briefest of seconds Gabriel half-wished he’d eaten Castiel’s popsicle before arresting that thought in its tracks and paying the strictest attention to Azazel.

The demon wearing him started to play with a heavy-duty military grade knife, maybe eight inches long and thick as hell. Dean watched it, clearly worried as Azazel continued. “But really that’s just sort of… eh. God doesn’t care if you make a couple bad decisions. What God really cares about is, you know, wanton destruction of oneself and suchlike. Sort of like suicide.”

“Wait—” Dean began, urgently, and the demon in Gabriel took the knife and cheerfully angled it up into his belly. Gabriel thought he heard it shriek in laughter as it expelled itself out of the window and left him to collapse on the floor.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

No no _no no_ _no_ , shit, _shit_ , thought Dean, lurching against Azazel’s hold. The demon was laughing as Gabriel gurgled unhappily, blood spreading into the sandy ground around the knife in his stomach as he slowly curled inwards.

“You can’t stop it now,” Azazel said cheerfully. “Just think of it like this—at least he’s dying in good company. You two are friends, aren’t y—”

Dean fell forward, released. He thrashed for a second, fighting gravity, and managed to see as the last of the red lighting crackled through Azazel and he fell forwards, Dad’s trusty knife embedded in his heart. Sam stood over him, looking properly vengeful.

“That’s for Jessica,” he spat out.

“Fuck Jessica, _Gabe,_ ” Dean got out, scrabbling forwards as someone came to his side and assisted him in his attempt to move forward and upward. It was Cas, who promptly let go when he noticed Gabriel was fruitlessly tugging at the hilt of the knife stuck in him.

“Gabe!” Dean said urgently, tugging the poor guy flat on his back. He felt the blade, eyes on the agent’s face as Cas came around to hold his partner’s head in place and keep him from thrashing too much. “Shit, we’ve got to get this out of him.”

“What? No, Dean—” Sam protested, seeming to notice Gabriel’s state. Dean had already jerked the knife out, though, and tossed it to the side. He pressed his hands to the wound, half praying that it would buy enough time.

“Gabriel? Gabriel!” Cas said firmly, after a brief, horrified look to Dean. “Stay with me. You’re going to be fine, okay? Just keep breathing.”

“Come one, Gabe, you’re doing fine,” Dean said, watching Gabriel’s eyelids flutter. “Come on, dude, just like with that gravel, okay?”

“Gravel?” Sam repeated, confused, kneeling on the other side. He had one of Gabriel’s hands in his grasp, and Dean would bet good money he was accidentally crushing it without noticing.

“Come on, come _on_ ,” Dean repeated in a snarl, feeling Gabriel’s skin twitch in all sorts of weird ways under his fingers. Gabriel shivered, and went completely limp.

“Oh,” Sam said, blankly. “Oh, no.”

Cas had his fingers pressed to Gabriel’s jugular, quietly despairing.

“Wait,” Dean said softly. He pulled his hands away and tugged Gabriel’s shirt and jacket up.

The knife wound was gone.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

“Why the fuck did you take me to the hospital?” Gabriel complained loudly as they wheeled him out to his car. “It was only a little demon! I’m a wizard, goddamnit!”

“You were suffering from internal bleeding and had some fractured ribs,” Dean told him patiently. “If it wasn’t for the drugs, you would definitely be feeling them.”

“But there aren’t any unicorns,” Gabriel said petulantly. Sam sighed and pulled him back into the chair as he started leaning forward. “If it was the good drugs, there’d be unicorns.”

“I wish I was on your drugs,” Dean muttered under his breath. Cas touched his shoulder lightly in comfort.

“No you don’t,” Sam said. “You wouldn’t get to drink victory beer.”

“I want a beer,” Gabriel said instantly.

“No,” Sam said firmly.

“Man, let’s just go home,” Dean said. “It’s going to be a long drive as it is.”

“Do you want to ride with Gabriel? I can take the Impala,” Sam offered.

“No,” Gabriel said firmly. “Dean hit a _demon_ with my pretty little thing. He does _not_ get to drive.”

“Cas?” Sam asked, looking a little disappointed.

“I want to drive with Dean,” Cas said, which was both exciting and really foreboding.

“Uh,” Dean said intelligently. “Are you going to yell at me?”

Cas quirked an eyebrow. “Should I plan on it?”

“No,” Dean said hurriedly, rolling Gabriel down the little cement ramp to the parking lot.

“Are we stealing the wheelchair?” Sam wanted to know.

“No,” Cas said. “Let’s set Gabriel up in the front passenger’s seat. It’s the most comfortable.”

“Right,” Dean said, and between the two of them and the empty parking space they managed to wrangle Gabriel into the seat with a minimum of fuss while Sam took the wheelchair back to the nurses at the front desk.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

“So, hey,” Dean said a little nervously three hours in. Cas had been silent as the grave apart from the quietly frustrated concern that was probably because of Gabriel, who was floating somewhere around the summit of Mount Everest, and neither had attempted anything beyond talking about music preferences. “You were pretty awesome back there.”

Cas mmmed. “Almost not fast enough, though,” he said quietly.

“Hey man, don’t think like that,” Dean said seriously, and added teasingly “You’re an officer of the law, don’t you know that already?”

Cas looked at him inscrutably. “Of course I do.”

“Yeah, so don’t worry about it,” Dean said, and punched him lightly in the shoulder. “You busted in with Sam just in time and everything.”

“I didn’t like this,” Cas said abruptly. “I don’t want you to do this.”

So. Well, Dean could have guessed this’d come up sooner or later. “Is that so,” Dean said neutrally, wheel creaking in his grip.

“I don’t like the thought of you doing this sort of thing,” Cas said slowly obviously feeling out the words. Dean opened his mouth to interject, but Castiel shook his head. He looked so confused that Dean figured he could wait. “I mean, you know that already. I just don’t like knowing that you do this when _this_ is what could happen.”

“This is a little out of the norm for us,” Dean pointed out tightly. This was incredibly uncomfortable.

Cas nodded. “I understand,” he said, still slow. “And while I understand that, I dislike the fact that you routinely do lesser things on your own. Being backup for you—” and he fiddled with his seatbelt and fumbled for words and was still heartbreakingly adorable, goddamnit “—it was eye-opening. So many things could have gone wrong, even with me and Gabriel around.”

“Cas,” Dean said, unable to stand it, “if you’re going to like, break up with me, can you get around to doing that already?”

Cas blinked. “What?”

“I mean I knew we were pushing it when Grandfather Henry came over, but—”

“What the hell?” Cas demanded, suddenly frigid. “I’m not _breaking up with you,_ good lord.”

“I—”

“I want to resign,” Cas said firmly, “in the hopes that I can become a member of your goddamn secret society. Or a hunter, or whatever. That way you won’t have to worry about me letting information slip.”

Dean was staring at him. Cas calmly put one hand on the wheel and tilted it slightly to avoid drifting over the lane line.

“Well, we can, uh, work on that,” Dean said faintly.

“Good,” Cas said. “Because I would also like to get married.”

This time Dean slammed on the breaks. Fortunately, they were behind Sam and Gabriel, who had sort of sped along and were a quarter mile ahead of them, so it wasn’t like they were in danger of causing a pileup.

“You may want to pull over,” Cas said.

“Did you just _propose_ to me?” Dean squeaked.

“Yes.”

“Oh,” Dean said, and huffed out a breath. “Oh, all right.”

Cas looked at him, and Dean was a little surprised to see that Cas looked very uncertain. “I understand if you want to wait a while,” he said, obviously attempting to leave an out for Dean, “it’s just that the hassle of dealing with Gabriel’s hospitalization and having to lie about being family and so on—”

“Sure,” Dean said, a little surprised at how easily the words came out. “I mean, yeah. You want to stop at the next courthouse?”

“I—no! Gabriel’s not in any fit state to witness—”

“Oh, well if that’s all,” Dean said, matter-of-fact tone completely ruined by the manic grin he felt stretched over his face. “Whatever, we can set the date later.”

Castiel tried to say something, but had to settle for clearing his throat a few times. “You are insane,” he finally managed, sounding far too fond to give it any sting.

“Nope,” Dean said gleefully. “I’m engaged.”

* * * * * * * * * * * *

“Holy shit,” Gabriel said suddenly, startled out of his rant about Victor Hugo’s Big Gay Couple and how wonderfully they were portrayed in certain Broadway productions by the chiming of text messages in his fancy phone. “Congratulations, Sam!”

“Um, what?” Sam said, startled out of his reverie he’d checked into as soon as Gabriel had really gotten into it.

“You’re going to be a little brother again!” Gabriel cheered, tapping something out on his phone. “Castiel just popped the question, how cute!”

“They’re getting married??”

“Dude, we totally need to get in on the cake tasting. Do you think I can be Dean’s best man? Like I know you’re sort of a shoo in but wouldn’t it be cool if they traded best men for the ceremony? You could be Cas’s best man!”

“Give me that phone,” Sam said roughly, and called Dean.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Four months later, the four of them, Grandfather Henry, Ellen, Jo, Ash, and Cas’s former colleagues Victor and Rufus tromped out of the courthouse and closed the Roadhouse for a private party to celebrate both the marriage and Castiel's novitiate as a member of the Men of Letters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Edit 1/10/16** : To anyone who is rereading this, or reading this for the first time... I want to do the Gabriel Big Bang! If there were a sequel focused on Gabriel, what would you be interested in reading?
> 
>  **Original notes:**  
>  THIS IS THE POINT WHERE I THANK EVERYONE.
> 
> Thanks first and foremost to deanlorean for coming up with the original prompt; this veered wildly in the original one-shot and progressed down a crazy path of AUness where the Winchesters were Somewhat Well Adjusted Normal Hunter People and wow, change that much and nothing seems sane anymore. I hope this managed to keep you entertained despite the wackiness.
> 
> Thanks also to the four reviewers who reviewed regularly-- your input was extremely valuable and I know this story got altered around a bit from the original sketch based on your comments! I hope every writer has reviewers like you :)
> 
> TO EVERYONE: Thank you so much for reading; I hope you enjoyed the ride! 
> 
> Thanks to lu for being awesome and totally sympathetic when I whined about one-shots turning into Actual Things.
> 
> Lastly, thanks to my good friend Michelle who went to Istanbul for a week and was kind enough to buy me a bottle of Jack Daniels and Glenfiddich in the Amman airport on her way back into the country. Without that Jack and some delicious mushrooms and steak I would never have been in the proper frame of mind to pound this out.


End file.
